it’s not healthy to silence debate

AT PRIMARY school, I liked to play with soft toys. At home I’d sometimes play with my sister’s Sindy doll. I preferred reading to rushing around the playground, and I hated football.

My best friend James was the same. We both liked netball and joined the girls’ team. Our teacher Mrs Roots was relaxed about this and encouraged us to do whatever we wanted. In modern parlance we were not confined by gender stereotypes. As a result I grew up knowing I was a boy who didn’t always have to do what the other boys did.

I doubt the same situation prevails. Indeed, I strongly suspect I’d be labelled trans (actually I am gay as is my friend James).

Dr David Bell, a consultant psychiatrist at the Tavistock Clinic in London has warned that children who are identified as transgender or have gender dysphoria (a mismatch between their biological sex and their gender identity), and who are treated medically or surgically are being put at risk of ‘serious and irreversible damage’.

He went further and accuses some trans lobby groups of ‘silencing debate’.

I share his concern and no doubt we will both be labelled transphobic. But I worry that some adult trans activists are pushing an agenda to intervene early on, ignoring the fact that we know so little about transgenderism/gender dysphoria, and especially how to accurately identify it in children.

It is important that leading clinicians like Dr Bell are free to voice concerns. It’s fundamental to best practice that procedures and protocols are questioned, tested and challenged. This isn’t transphobia, it’s medicine.