Former patient sues child sex-change clinic
Transgender woman joins landmark case to prevent NHS trust giving under-12s ‘torturous’ treatments
A TRANSGENDER patient has launched a legal case against a sex change clinic she claims is putting children on a “permanent” and “unnecessary” path, High Court papers show.
The Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, which runs the UK’S only gender identity development service (GIDS) for children, is being sued over concerns that youngsters are being given “experimental treatment” without adequate assessments.
The landmark case centres around a bid to stop the NHS prescribing “experimental” puberty blockers and crosssex hormones to children who wish to undergo gender reassignment.
It is being brought by a woman known only as Mrs A, the mother of a 15-year-old autistic girl who is currently on the waiting list for treatment at the service. Earlier this month, The Daily Telegraph reported that Susan Evans, 62, a former psychiatric nurse at the trust, was a lead claimant in the case with Mrs A. She said that “experimental” and “invasive medical treatment” should be prevented in order to protect children.
But it can now be revealed that Keira Bell, a 23-year-old former Tavistock patient who lives in the Cambridge area, is taking her place as lead claimant in the High Court challenge. At a hearing in London yesterday, Mrs A’s lawyer, Jeremy Hyam QC, formally requested that Ms Bell be made a claimant in the case. Mr Justice Supperstone, overseeing the case, agreed.
After the hearing, Ms Bell said: “I have become a claimant in this case because I do not believe that children and young people can consent to the use of powerful and experimental hormone drugs like I did. I believe that the current affirmative system put in place by the Tavistock is inadequate as it does not allow for exploration of these gender dysphoric feelings, nor seek to find the underlying causes of this condition.
“Hormone-changing drugs and surgery do not work for everyone and certainly should not be offered to someone under the age of 18 when they are emotionally and mentally vulnerable.
“The treatment needs to change so it does not put young people, like me, on a torturous and unnecessary path that is permanent and life-changing.”
At the hearing, Mr Hyam said: “That treatment is given to children under the age of 12 on the basis that those children themselves gave fully-informed consent, even though the nature of the treatment has side effects, which, we say, supported by the evidence, they cannot properly take into account.”
Ms Evans told The Daily Telegraph that the former patient has had “her life thoroughly interrupted” and “feels very damaged”.
In a statement after the claim was filed earlier this month, a spokesman for the trust said: “Our clinical interventions are laid out in nationally-set service specifications. NHS England monitor our service closely. The service has a high level of reported satisfaction and was rated good by the Care Quality Commission.”