Sex change clinic for children ‘too quick to act’
Ex-boss at UK clinic used by HSE says good practice is being ignored
AN EX-GOVERNOR of a controversial British transgender clinic that treats Irish children says he quit because he feared being labelled transphobic for insisting on good medical practice.
More than 100 Irish children have been sent to England since 2010 to be assessed in a clinic, which is caught up in a controversy over fast-tracking gender transition.
The Tavistock Clinic in London, which is the main gender clinic for children in Ireland and England, is in the news after the resignation of clinicians who claim children were being incorrectly diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
The most recent figures released from the clinic’s gender identity
‘We’re completely in the dark’
development service show that 38 Irish children attended in 20172018.
Since 2010, 117 boys and girls from Ireland have been referred to the NHS clinic, but in the last three years there has been a sharp rise in referrals of children unhappy about their biological sex.
The children, aged from eight to 17, are initially psychologically assessed in the clinic.
The treatment, which involves puberty blockers in some cases, is mainly carried out in Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in Dublin.
Marcus Evans, a former governors of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, resigned over concerns that the youth gender clinic was too quick to give children and young people gender reassignment treatment.
The consultant psychotherapist, who had a 34-year association with the trust, said he believed the clinic needed oversight from an independent body.
‘I do not have confidence, and that’s why I resigned, that the trust is taking the necessary steps to make sure that children are being adequately cared for,’ said Dr Evans. He said staff were raising concerns that there was ‘not enough of a thorough investigation of what was wrong with these kids’ and that they were being fast-tracked.
Children can be treated with hormone blockers to stop puberty and from the age of 16 can be prescribed cross-sex hormones of either oestrogen or testosterone, which cause irreversible changes to the body.
‘There’s pressure to come down all the time, younger and younger,’ said Dr Evans.
He said people working there found it difficult to speak out.
‘It’s tyrannised by the fear of being accused of being transphobic. I’m not transphobic, I’m standing up for what I think is good medical practice,’ he said.
‘I think we need to slow the whole thing. In normal development you go through different stages.
‘Experimenting with different facets of your identity is part of growing up. Why are we coming to fix solutions around one topic [gender] at an early age?’
Dr Evans said the profession did not know the long-term effects of drugs being given to children. ‘We’re completely in the dark and yet we’re acting like we know what we’re doing,’ he said.
He advised parents not to rush into treatments.
Around Ireland, more than 300 families are receiving support to help children with their gender identity.
A HSE spokesman said: ‘Tavistock has provided a service in Ireland for young people for a number of years. They are supporting us to transition this service to Irish clinicians.’