Britain’s National Health Service may begin to start offering transgender treatments to children as young as seven-years-old in its new gender clinic.
Following the decision from NHS England to shut down the controversial Tavistock Centre and its Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) over child safeguarding concerns, a new service set to be launched by the socialised healthcare system may continue the practice of treating youngsters for supposed gender dysphoria.
According to a report from the Daily Telegraph, the NHS has set a minimum age of seven years old for a child to be referred to gender identity clinics. Prior to the updated guidance, there was no minimum age for children, meaning that children as young as three years old were given gender “care” by the Tavistock clinic.
Although new guidance will reportedly place limits on the prescription of life-altering puberty-blocking drugs and prohibit teachers and activists from referring children for the service, and will instead focus on psychological therapy.
The NHS’s new guidance for child gender care reportedly states: “Children under seven years of age may not be expected to have sufficiently developed their intellectual understanding of, and comprehension of, sex and gender to be able to understand the reasons for, and potential consequences of, a referral to a specialist gender incongruence service.”
According to the healthcare provider, by the age of seven, children will “be more established within school, and education professionals and school nurses will be able to contribute to a general observational view as to the appropriateness of a referral”.
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— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) July 30, 2022
Yet, some have raised the warning that the continued practice of offering gender services to children could serve as a gateway to more serious interventions later in life.
Dr David Bell, a consultant psychiatrist who became a whistleblower against the Tavistock clinic’s practices, said: “For me, there is a structural problem which needs particular caution: referring a child to a gender service, even if they are seen in the context of a multidisciplinary team, in that the mere fact of referral is consequential.
“It risks the child’s difficulties being viewed by themselves and their family as primarily to do with gender. Labelling the problem as a ‘gender problem’ can easily be the first step on a pathway to medical transition.”
The Tavistock Centre, which is set to be shut down completely by next year after its practices were deemed not to be safe for children, reportedly gave some 19,000 children “treatment” for gender dysphoria since opening in 1999. Over a thousand families are reported to be launching legal action against the clinic for misdiagnosing their children.
The clinic has been accused by whistleblowers of offering puberty-blocking drugs to children after as little as just one consultation.
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— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 23, 2023