Courage of the parents, patients and whistleblowers who refused to be silenced
IN the end it was NHS England that ordered the Tavistock trust to close down its gender identity clinic for children in the wake of a damning review by an eminent paediatrician.
But its far-reaching decision yesterday would never have been taken but for the brave voices of a few individuals who spoke out against the controversial centre.
Patients, parents and even the Tavistock’s own staff turned whistleblower, some putting their careers in jeopardy, to warn that vulnerable children unsure about their gender were being put at risk by being prescribed powerful drugs to stop the onset of puberty.
The first to raise concerns in 2005 was Sue Evans, a nurse at the Tavistock’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) in north London.
She was worried that teenagers were
Treatment plans inf luenced by trans groups
being assessed too quickly and that treatment plans were being influenced by transgender rights groups.
Her fears were not made public at the time, however, and for a number of years few questions were asked about the soaring number of referrals the clinic was receiving, except by concerned parents’ groups led by Stephanie Davies-Arai.
Then in late 2018, a senior member of staff told the trust’s board that children were wrongly being fast-tracked into changing gender and the psychological and social reasons behind their feelings were being dismissed.
A group of parents also wrote to the board raising concerns that the GIDS team was being asked to ‘assess complex and difficult cases within a highly constrained time frame’.
A dynamite report by David Bell, then a staff governor, said that patients were being exposed to ‘long-term damage’ because the clinic could not ‘stand up to the pressure’ from ‘highly politicised’ campaigners and families.
He accused the service of providing ‘woefully inadequate care’ and that staff had ‘very serious ethical concerns’ about children making life- changing decisions with inadequate assessment or consent.
Dr Bell was then sent two letters threatening disciplinary action, including vague allegations of bullying.
And although his internal report led to a review by the trust’s medical director, Dinesh Sinha, early in 2019, which admitted staff caseloads were ‘excessive’ and there was lobbying from pressure groups, it concluded that the service was safe.
Then consultant psychotherapist Marcus Evans – whose wife Sue had first raised concerns years earlier – resigned in protest at the Tavistock’s response to doctors who raised the alarm.
He accused the trust of creating a ‘climate of fear’ and trying to ‘dismiss or undermine’ concerns, while 25 other clinicians signed a letter complaining about the attitude of managers.
A few months later, in July 2019, clinical psychologist Dr Kirsty Entwistle went public with an open letter about what she had seen while working at the GIDS Leeds branch.
She said that medical staff were not looking into why teenagers might want to transition for fear of being labelled transphobic, and claimed they were telling patients that puberty-blocking drugs were ‘fully reversible’ without evidence.
Later that year former nurse Mrs Evans – along with ‘Mrs A’, the mother of a 15- year- old patient – launched the first legal action against the Tavistock, claiming it should not be prescribing puberty blockers to chilby
‘So many brave women and men’
dren incapable of giving informed consent to the treatment.
Her place as lead claimant in the judicial review was taken by patient Keira Bell, who had been prescribed the drugs by GIDS when she was 16. She went on to undergo breast-removal surgery, but later regretted transitioning. In December 2020, in a major blow to the Tavistock, the High Court ruled that under-16s could not give informed consent to the treatment – although the decision was overturned on appeal last year. By then, however, another whistleblower had not only come forward but had also won an employment tribunal case against the clinic.
Sonia appleby was awarded £20,000 after trust management tried to stop her carrying out her safeguarding role when staff raised concerns with her. Yesterday, the key role played by the whistleblowers in shutting down the Tavistock clinic was hailed by gender- critical campaigners online.
author Helen Joyce told them: ‘More than anyone, you made this happen.’ allison Bailey, the barrister who won her own battle against her employer this week for the right to stand up to ‘trans extremism’, thanked the ‘so many brave women and men’ who helped stop the ‘medical scandal’ by speaking out.