Youngsters ‘at suicide risk’ after sex change surgery
A FORMER governor of the country’s only NHS gender identity service for children says “many” young people attempt suicide after regretting sex change surgery.
Dr Marcus Evans, who worked at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, accused his former managers of following “ideological beliefs” on gender that became so “weaponised” and “politicised” that they lost clinical value.
He spoke out following a large-scale NHS review into the use of transitioning drugs for children which called into question the clinical practice of gender changing medicine.
A report by Dr Hilary Cass published last week found “no good evidence” to support the growing use of prescribed hormones to under-18s to halt puberty or transition to the opposite sex.
Thousands of children have received puberty blockers on the NHS since 2011, and referrals to Tavistock’s Gender Identity Development Service increased a hundredfold during the past decade to 9,000. While the service was closed in 2022 following widespread criticism, similar work with children continued in two regional hubs.
Consultant psychotherapist Dr Evans, 62, who worked at the North London clinic, said he watched children with “complex psychological problems” being “fast-tracked” through a medical response which was more like a “customer service” than a “clinical service”. He said many of the children treated went on to have powerful and irreversible sex changing surgery with devastating consequences.
His concern was based on his experiences at a different job running a clinic for people who had attempted suicide.
He said: “I had come across false clinical claims that the majority of people make a successful transition.
“In a previous job I used to see people who had reassignment surgery thinking this would resolve their problems. It didn’t, so they would take an overdose and end up in hospital.”
Dr Evans raised his concerns but says he resigned from the board of governors at the Tavistock and Portman Trust in 2019 because his