The NHS’s disturbing trans guidance for children

Sajid Javid spoke some sense earlier this week when he said that the word ‘woman’ should not be removed from NHS ovarian cancer guidance. The Health Secretary was responding to the revelations that the NHS website had been stripping the word ‘woman’ from its advice pages. But fine words are only a start. The Health Secretary needs to get a grip on an NHS website that seems in thrall to magical thinking on sex and gender.

The problem is wider than he might realise. Quite apart from the row over the advice to women seeking advice on cervical cancer and ovarian cancer, the NHS is currently hosting a page entitled, ‘Think your child might be trans or non-binary?’ The page contains very worrying guidance for parents concerned that their children might be ‘confused about their gender’.

The page rapidly heads off into fantasy land. Reading more like an activist blog than official NHS guidance, the website declares that:

‘We now believe that gender identity is on a spectrum that includes male, female and a diversity of gender identities such as non-binary and agender (no gender).’