Transgender children using NHS to freeze sperm and eggs for future family life

DOZENS of transgender teenagers are freezing their sperm or eggs on the NHS in case they want children after changing sex, doctors have said.

Boys as young as 12 who have been diagnosed with “gender dysphoria” are having sperm frozen before they start hormone treatment that halts the onset of puberty. Doctors behind the scheme, which also preserves eggs from girls who believe they were born the wrong sex, said it was only fair to give patients the right to start a family.

Prof Gary Butler, head clinician for Britain’s only NHS service for young people with gender dysphoria – the belief a person is inhabiting the wrong sex – said: “Transgender people are not making a lifestyle choice. They are following their biological and psychological make-up about their identity.

“If they want to become parents and raise a family the science and medicine is there. It’s the right of the individual to be able to do that.” He said dozens of patients who were born male, but planned to undergo surgery to change gender, are freezing their sperm first.

They are referred to the Gender Identity Development NHS clinic for under-18s at London’s University College Hospital after psychological assessments at the Tavistock Clinic. NHS clinics are also freezing the eggs of girls from the age of 16 before they begin taking male hormones that will reduce fertility. Egg-freezing costs £4,000 for one cycle and around £300 for storage a year, while the price of preserving sperm is around £400, plus £300 a year to keep it frozen.

Bishop Michael Nazir-ali, former chairman of the ethics committee of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, yesterday criticised the scheme, which was disclosed in The Mail on Sunday. “The NHS is about treating people who are ill – that’s what we pay our taxes for.

“It is not to aid people’s various wishes about what they want to do with their bodies or their futures.”