The only NHS facility for transgender young people in the UK is the Tavistock and Portman Trust. Since 2015, 35 staff have resigned from the Gender Identity Development service citing the lack of credible research into gender dysphoria and treatment and why there has been such an increase in cases. As one doctor at the conference told me:
“As demand surged for under 18-year-olds, it became clear that these young girls, in particular, had some very serious psychological problems, but were almost instantly affirmed as being ‘gender dysphoric’. That diagnosis is all that is needed to be rubber-stamped for testosterone, and subsequent surgery. Many of us that resigned over this are very worried indeed where it is leading.”
But few dare speak out. Dr David Bell, consultant psychiatrist at the Tavistock, described why it’s so difficult for those services which deal with trans identity to accept the detransition movement. “Detransitioners are a threat to an ideology that has acquired an almost totalitarian quality and cannot be challenged,” he says. “It is extraordinary the way in which, without any evidence at all, trans ideology has had the ears of politicians up to the highest level.”