CHILDREN AGED JUST NINE GIVEN PUBERTY BLOCKERS

Demands for Scots gender clinic to be closed after shocking report into treatment of vulnerable youngsters

CHILDREN as young as nine have been handed prescriptions for puberty blockers at a Scots gender clinic.

Youngsters with gender dysphoria have been given the drugs at the Nhs-run national gender service, a bombshell investigation has shown.

A ‘disproportionate’ number of those treated were on the autistic spectrum, while many had conditions such as anxiety and depression, raising fears over future legal action from those who may claim to have been misdiagnosed.

The dossier has also revealed parallels between the sandyford clinic in Glasgow and the Tavistock child gender identity clinic in London, which is set to be closed down after it was heavily criticised in a review by Dr David Bell, a consultant psychiatrist

who raised concerns about the way it was treating patients.

The report into the national gender identity service reveals:

A total of 91 youngsters aged between eight and 17 were referred to paediatric endocrinology between 2011 and 2019;

Two-thirds of those referred were ‘birth assigned females’;

Almost a quarter were on the autistic spectrum, and 37 per cent had mental health conditions such as depression;

Only six out of 64 young people eligible for fertility preservation completed the process.

Campaigners have called for the clinic to be closed. A spokesman for campaign group For Women Scotland said: ‘The parallels with the ill-fated Tavistock are stark. Endocrinologists are halting children’s puberty with experimental drugs.

‘It is essential the Scottish Government acts immediately to close Sandyford... not to do so would be gross medical negligence and likely to attract, as is happening in England, legal cases from former patients.’

Dr Bell, the psychiatrist who raised concerns about the Tavistock, said: ‘There is a lack of evidence worldwide on the effects of prescribing puberty blockers for gender dysphoria and there is significant concern that they may interfere with brain and bone development. A national gender service is the wrong model. These children and young people need to be understood in the context of the other mental health issues they are experiencing.’

The findings are revealed in a research paper by NHS clinicians who carried out an appraisal of the Scottish service, which they say has ‘clear benefits’ for youngsters with gender dysphoria as it has a range of different specialists.

They appraised the service offered to youngsters with gender dysphoria referred to endocrinologists at the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow for puberty suppressing drugs.

It comes after the Scottish Government’s Gender Recognition Bill, which would allow individuals to change their sex without the need for medical reports, passed a first stage vote last week. This was despite seven Nationalist MSPs voting against and two abstaining – the biggest rebellion since the SNP came to power in 2007.

Asked to comment on the Sandyford report, the Scottish Government, which commissions the service from NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, said that treatment decisions were ‘rightly for clinicians to make in consultation with patients following specialist assessment’.

The Equality Network and the Scottish Transgender Alliance were approached for comment.