NHS children’s clinic used lawyers ‘to silence critics’
BRITAIN’S first children’s gender identity clinic hired lawyers to try to force the publishers of a book criticising its practices to let it see the contents before publication, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
A law firm instructed by the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) wrote to the editors of ‘Inventing Transgender Children and Young People’, which warns that the rocketing number of youngsters now seeking to change sex is becoming a scandal.
Lawyers representing Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, which runs the clinic, claimed many of those who had contributed to the book will have been employed by the gender service and may have broken NHS confidentiality rules.
They said the Tavistock feared the book may contain comments ‘defamatory’ of its staff.
It warned that if the editors refused to send the book to the clinic prior to publication, the Trust reserved its ‘full legal rights’ to take court action.
An earlier letter from the clinic’s lawyers at the firm DAC Beachcroft insisted the service was not trying to ‘gag’ the writers and staff who had been interviewed, but wanted to ensure the book contributes to the transgender ‘debate’ in ‘a fair, accurate and positive manner’.
Professor Frank Furedi, who has spoken out against transgender activists ‘shutting down’ debate, said the legal letters appeared to be an attempt to ‘silence’ medical staff raising ‘valid concerns’.
One of the book’s co-editors, Dr Heather Brunskell-Evans, said the concerns raised by the clinic were unfounded because there had been no breaches of confidentiality.
On the decision not to send the book to the Trust before publication last month, she said: ‘The Tavistock are an NHS organisation, using public funds to try to influence the manner in which [co-editor] Michele Moore, myself and the other writers contributed to the debate.’
The Mail on Sunday exclusively previewed the book in July, highlighting how it challenges what it claims are transgender ‘myths’ told to children.
The book includes interviews with whistleblowers from GIDS, the only NHS gender clinic for under-18s, warning that doctors are failing to tell young people they are ‘sacrificing’ their chance to have children by taking powerful sex-change drugs. It also warns that psychologists will not question if a child is transgender or not for fear of accusations of transphobia, and claims clinicians are failing to acknowledge other reasons for youngsters wanting to change sex, such as autism.
A spokesman for GIDS said: ‘The Trust welcomes thoughtful, informed discussion. But we consider any correspondence between the Trust and third parties on these matters to be confidential.’