Social workers called in after mum objects to sex change for daughter, 14
The school where SEVENTEEN children are changing gender
A MOTHER was warned that her daughter could be placed under the care of social workers after she complained that the 14-year-old was being ‘encouraged’ to change sex by a therapist and her teachers.
The 45-year-old, whom we have called Lisa to protect her identity, raised objections after discovering that, during their first hour-long appointment, an NHS psychotherapist had told the girl she could take hormones to stop her periods and give her male characteristics.
She also found out that teachers had given her daughter – who wanted to identify as male – a boy’s name and referred to her using male pronouns at school without her parents’ knowledge.
The school in the Midlands – the name of which the MoS has agreed to withhold because the girl still attends classes there – called in social services after Lisa banned her daughter from visiting the NHS clinic where she was receiving counselling and tried to find another therapist.
Lisa, who says her daughter is a lesbian and only claimed to be transgender after being bullied for being gay, demanded that teachers should stop treating her as a boy and use her girl’s name.
At a meeting at the school in January, Lisa was told her attempt to find an alternative therapist was akin to ‘conversion therapy’ – a psychological practice of trying to change a person’s sexual orientation. Days later Lisa received a ‘terrifying’ email from Child and Adult Services stating that her daughter was deemed to be at risk. Further warnings said the teenager could be placed in a ‘child protection plan’.
‘I was reduced to tears because we were being treated like criminals when we were trying to protect our daughter,’ Lisa said.
‘My daughter felt rejected as a lesbian, so she turned to the internet for answers and was sucked in by these social media sites selling her a lie that there are young people born in the wrong body.’
Lisa told the The Mail on Sunday her daughter came out as transgender at 13. She said: ‘She wrote me and my husband a letter saying she was born in the wrong body and she was a boy. I thought, “These are not her words – these are words she’s picked off the internet”.’
The teenager begged to see a therapist for gender dysphoria after being encouraged by a friend. Lisa refused, but let her be referred to the NHS Child and Adult Mental Health Services.
Lisa was then ‘horrified’ when a counsellor told her daughter: ‘Don’t worry, it is only a year and a half until you can take hormones.’ Now, after emails between the mother of one and a social worker, the local authority has closed the case and the school now uses the teenager’s real name. Lisa said: ‘I’m furious at the way we’ve been treated. No family should be put through this hell.’
Last week, The Mail on Sunday revealed that 17 pupils at a single British school are in the process of changing gender.