It’s time to listen to the NHS gender clinic whistleblowers

Why are increasing numbers of children designated as transgender? Are the resulting medical interventions safe and justified and in the best long-term interests of those children? These are questions of public interest. Some of the answers being offered are troubling, to say the least. One such answer came this week, and deserves attention from politicians and journalists. It’s an open letter from Dr Kirsty Entwistle, formerly a clinical psychologist at the Gender Identity Development Service, the main NHS service for children who might be transgender. It’s a long piece and should be read in full. But here are a few key extracts:

“I think it is a problem that GIDS clinicians are making decisions that will have a major impact on children and young people’s bodies and on their lives, potentially the rest of their lives, without a robust evidence base. GIDS clinicians tell children and families that puberty blockers/hormone blocks are “fully reversible” but the reality is no one knows what the impacts are on children’s brains, so how is it possible to make this claim?”

 

“There are children who have had very traumatic early experiences and early losses who are being put on the medical pathway without having explored or addressed their early adverse experiences.