The Times

Tavistock gender clinic ‘to be sued by 1,000 families’

11 August 2022 - Eleanor Hayward

Former patients given puberty blockers are joining the “class action” lawsuit and papers are due to be lodged at the High Court within six months. Tom Goodhead, chief executive of Pogust Goodhead, told The 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.

My puberty was chemically delayed. I was their guinea pig

17 June 2022 - Lucy Bannerman

“I was tremendously anxious about looking like a girl. They said, ‘We think you’re the right age and you should try hormone blockers.’ They sell the drugs very early, very hard.

“I was a child. All I wanted was something to make me feel less horrified by my body,” Alex says, reflecting on the experience from the kitchen island of his family home in the west of England. “And I was listening to a doctor, so I went along with it,” his mother adds, shaking her head.

What went wrong at the Tavistock clinic for trans teenagers?

Since 2010, the number of teenage girls referred to the Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service has increased by 5,000 per cent. Now former patients and staff members are speaking out.

17 June 2022 - Janice Turner

Sajid Javid inquiry into gender treatment for children

22 April 2022 - Chris Smyth

“That overly affirmative approach where people just accept what a child says, almost automatically, and then start talking about things like puberty blockers — that’s not in the interest of the child at all,” the ally said.

Gender expert: online influencers rush adolescents towards transitionopen_in_new

18 April 2022 - Keiran Southern

Social media influencers are pushing young people who are unsure about their gender into hasty decisions to transition, according to a clinical psychologist who is herself transgender.

Tavistock gender clinic not safe for children, report finds

England’s only specialist service for young people who identify as transgender is criticised in an NHS report

Tavistock clinic treats girls who don’t like dolls ‘as transgender’

23 November 2021 - Laurence Sleator

Girls who do not like pink ribbons or playing with dolls are being treated as transgender at the NHS Tavistock clinic, according to a whistleblower.

Tavistock gender clinic ‘converting’ gay childrenopen_in_new

A gay psychologist who worked at the NHS’s only gender transition clinic for children spoke of his fears that the clinic was running “conversion therapy for gay kids”.

20 June 2021 - Emily Dugan and Sian Griffiths

Banning gay conversion therapy is a minefieldopen_in_new

Coercing people to change their sexuality is abhorrent but a law change could also impact churches and trans activists.

15 May 2021 - Janice Turner

“Many of the young women attending gender clinics have underlying problems, including undiagnosed autism, anxiety and self-harm. Or they have suffered traumas such as sexual abuse which causes them to reject their bodies.”

“Psychotherapists have written to Liz Truss, the minister for women, defending their right to unpick such complex factors before a patient is moved on to the irreversible medical pathway of hormones and surgery. If therapists risk being accused of “conversion therapy” just for asking questions they will be silenced and vulnerable young patients will suffer.”

“Besides, many clinicians feel they have witnessed, even been expected to participate in, gay conversion themselves. Tavistock patients are overwhelmingly gay, including 90 per cent of girls. For some parents outside big liberal cities there is more stigma in saying your little girl is a lesbian than a boy “born in the wrong body” who doctors can fix into a straight son. Horrified gay clinicians at Tavistock told Dr David Bell, who wrote a whistleblowing report, that many parents were keener on medical transition than their child was or appeared to be reciting an activist script.”

NHS adviser to review hormone use on youngopen_in_new

Warnings of impact on height and bone strength prompt calls for review into prescribing puberty blockers for children.

4 April 2021 - Mark Macaskill

Irish College of GPs reverses stance on puberty blockers

The Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) has removed a statement from a guide on transgender health that puberty blockers are a “reversible intervention”.

7 February 2021 - Colin Coyle

Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier review — resisting the ‘transgender craze’open_in_new

This fearless book shows how girls’ bodies have become collateral damage in adult culture wars.

30 December 2020 - Janice Turner

Online clinic ignores ruling on puberty blockersopen_in_new

The overseas practice, whose founder is a suspended GP, says it will continue to prescribe the drugs to under-18s.

5 December 2020 - Shanti Das, Sian Griffiths, Mark Macaskill

Can life-changing decisions be left to children?open_in_new

10 October 2020 - Janice Turner

If Keira Bell’s case succeeds, it will have global implications, especially for countries such as New Zealand and Australia, with similar Gillick tests. It will also open up medical negligence claims against GIDS. The fallout from an unexamined global rise in young women transitioning — 75 per cent of Tavistock referrals are now female — is a growing number of detransitioners like Ms Bell.

Puberty blocking drugs: ‘For the past four years I’ve been stuck as a child’open_in_new

26 July 2019 - Lucy Bannerman

Jacob has just turned 16 and for the past four years the teenager’s body has been put on pause. He has been on hormone blockers to stop puberty while he decides how far he is willing to go to become a transgenderman. He claims that taking blockers was “the worst decision I’ve ever made”.

Jacob also claims he was not warned about the side-effects of the drugs. These have included insomnia, exhaustion, fatigue, low moods, rapid weight gain which caused his skin to become covered with angry, itchy stretch marks, and a reduction in bone density. “I’d never broken a bone before [taking puberty blockers],” he says. “I’ve since broken four bones. “I stubbed my toe, it broke. I fell over, my wrist broke. Same with my elbow.”

As he took the blockers, Jacob’s mother watched her child become even more introverted and body-conscious. “The blockers contributed more to the self-image problems that were already there,” she said.

In hindsight, Jacob finds it surprising how little his background — and the reasons why he didn’t want to be a girl — were discussed before being referred for treatment. “They didn’t even look at my history or trauma,” claimed Jacob. “They sent a child whose circumstances and feelings they didn’t understand [for hormone treatment].” Jacob is speaking out about his experience to warn other transgender youngsters to think twice before starting blockers. “I was sold a miracle cure. They promised happiness with little evidence behind it. Then four years in, you realise, oh my God, I’ve no idea about the long-term effects. “They asked a 12-year-old to make a decision an adult would struggle with. “It was like, ‘here are the drugs’ and off we went. It’s a ridiculous process. It’s not gone the way they told me it was going to go.”

The detransitioners: what happens when trans men want to be women again?open_in_new

12 July 2020 - Laura Dodsworth

“I want to work on accepting my body exactly the way it is now,” Ellie, pictured on the cover of this magazine, told me. “This is what should have been encouraged from the beginning.”

Sinead, 29

I wanted to be a boy when I was younger. From 15 it intensified. I googled “I’m a woman but I wish I was a man” and through the power of the internet I found out about [gender] dysphoria and transition.

A few painful and difficult things have happened to me that I think were behind me wanting to be a man and not be a woman. I know I was not in the wrong, but they are things I can’t talk about publicly. What I know now is that transitioning wasn’t the way to deal with those things.

I’m in group chats with other detransitioners. I know about 100 detransitioned women myself. But we all know others who aren’t active online or in group chats. The official numbers of detransitioners aren’t collected, they aren’t known at the moment. But I think we are the tip of the iceberg. There will be many of us to come.

Ellie, 21

I came out as lesbian to my family in Belgium when I was 15. They were OK with it and I felt quite comfortable dating girls. At some point, though, I started to question myself a lot. I couldn’t picture myself growing up to be a woman. I found a trans organisation in Europe offering psychological appointments, and so I went and told them what was going on in my head. I was surprised by their advice; they only told me about masculinising treatments and surgeries. I think it was a completely different answer to the one I was really looking for, so I came out very confused, but they had planted a seed.

I’ve tried to talk about background issues with therapists, but gender dysphoria was seen as the cause of my problems and not a symptom of them. Actually I think my gender issues came out of mental health issues, not the other way around

My transition was not necessary, but I don’t want to be regretful. I want to work on accepting my body exactly the way it is now. This is what should have been encouraged from the beginning.

Lucy, 23

I couldn’t relate to very feminine, heterosexual women when I was growing up in Germany. My mum is a housewife and a mother, and I value that, but I just couldn’t imagine myself living that way. My dad is into sport, and I related to him more. I knew only one slightly more masculine woman who had short hair when I was growing up. Since detransitioning I have met many more gender non-conforming women similar to me. I often think if I’d had people like that in my life when I was a teenager, I don’t think I would have been trans.

Anorexia made it easy for me to fall into developing [gender] dysphoria and wanting to transition because I had already spent so much time focusing on my body and wanting to change it with dieting and starving.

Before I came out I was pretty confident. I didn’t think it was a bad thing to be a lesbian, but then the reactions came. I started dating one of my classmates. We sat together, we were cute with each other and would hold hands, so people noticed fairly quickly. We got some pretty nasty treatment. No one wanted to be in the locker room with us any more. I’m a really romantic person and it felt disgusting to be reduced to my sexuality. It made me feel horrible about being a lesbian.

I’m horrified that when I went for the hysterectomy they didn’t emphasise to me how important these organs are. Now it’s too late. I’m 23 and I am basically in menopause already, with all the health implications that come with that. I can’t comprehend how doctors could let this happen

Parents battle ‘state‑sponsored sterilisation’ of trans children

26 October 2019 - Joani Walsh and sian Griffiths

A new group says the NHS is steering confused youngsters towards treatments that can leave them infertile

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