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Trans activists must stop claiming that children will kill themselves if they are prevented from changing gender, the Government’s adviser on suicide prevention has said.
In a significant intervention, Prof Sir Louis Appleby said there was no evidence behind the claim and that it was “deeply insensitive” to those families who have suffered from the suicide of a teenager.
Groups like the charity Mermaids, which have been accused of pushing
puberty blockers on children, have in the past claimed that denying a child’s right to change their gender identity could increase the risk of suicide.
MPs have also used the argument in the Commons.
Prof Appleby, a psychiatrist who leads the National Suicide Prevention Strategy for England, said: “Children with gender distress may face bullying, isolation and family conflict, [which are] reasons to be alert to suicide risk.
“Empathetic support is vital but evidence that puberty blockers reduce risk is weak and unreliable.
“Invoking suicide in this debate is mistaken and potentially harmful.”
Writing on X, formerly Twitter, he added: “We need to see an end to that line about choosing a living daughter or a dead son.
“It is not based on evidence. May add to distress in young people and mislead worried parents.
“Deeply insensitive to 200 families a year to whom the suicide of a teenager is more than a slogan.”
Susie Green, who previously headed up
Mermaids after her son told her aged four that he should have been a girl, is among those who have invoked suicide.
In an article for The Independent, she wrote: “Listening to your child should never be equated with abusive and bad parenting. And my family is proof of that.
“I have my daughter, whole and alive, but if I had refused to listen then it’s very likely that I would have a dead son.”
Kirsty Blackman, an SNP MP, quoted a trans constituent in a Commons debate.
“When they heard about biological sex being included in the Equality Act and this change being made, they said: ‘What hope is left? Should I just kill myself now and be done with it?’”
Despite all the rhetoric, there is no evidence of large numbers of suicides of trans teenagers in recent years.
Ministers under pressure
Prof Appleby’s intervention comes just days after the NHS banned children from
receiving puberty blockers on prescription.
NHS England said under-18s will now only be able to take the controversial drugs as part of a clinical trial set to start at the end of this year, citing a lack of evidence that they were safe or effective.
Ministers said the “landmark decision” was in children’s “best interests” and would help to ensure youngsters who feel their gender is not the same as their sex are being treated with a view to the medical evidence.
The proposals to stop the practice were first accepted by NHS England in July 2022 following recommendations made by a
review led by Dr Hilary Cass, the former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.
She warned that the drugs may permanently disrupt the brain maturation of adolescents, potentially rewiring neural circuits in a way that cannot be reversed, and said there was a lack of long-term evidence and data collection on their safety and effectiveness.
Ministers are now under pressure to make it illegal for private clinics to give puberty blockers to children, amid fears that online doctors could exploit the NHS ban on the drugs.
Campaigners warn that children and parents could migrate from the NHS to online clinics running a “
Wild West operation”.
Private clinics have previously been found to prescribe puberty blockers to young children after online meetings. This includes
GenderGP, a website run by the GP Dr Helen Webberley that is registered in Singapore.
A spokesman for Mermaids said multiple studies show that “trans young people are disproportionally at risk of experiencing depression, self-harm, substance misuse, suicidal thoughts and behaviours, linked to factors such as discrimination and transphobia”.
Meanwhile, Liz Truss will on Friday launch in the Commons an attempt to ban puberty blockers entirely, as well as one to protect women’s spaces by changing the law to define “sex” as “biological sex”.
The former prime minister urged Rishi Sunak to back her bill, which she said would give children and women the protections that they need “in the face of the extreme agenda being pursued by militant gender ideologues”.
“I have had productive discussions with colleagues in Parliament and am very much hoping the Government will back my Bill. This would be hugely positive for the protection of children,” she said.
Dr Caroline Johnson, a Tory MP, consultant paediatrician, and member of the Commons health select committee, said: “We need legislation because otherwise I fear prescribing of puberty blockers will just shift into the private sector.
“I think it’s wrong that children’s bodies are being changed irreversibly without adequate evidence that it’s necessary or in their best interests.”
A government aide said: “Kemi [Badenoch] is very supportive of the aims of Liz’s bill but it is unworkable in its current form. Nonetheless it can support Kemi’s work on the definition of sex, and colleagues’ work banning puberty blockers, and Liz is keen to help.
“The Labour Party is hopelessly split on these issues, so the Conservatives should be open to all ideas to improve protections for women and girls.”
