There is a story in the MoS that the NHS wants to appoint a 'transgender champion' in hundreds of doctors' surgeries.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5050725/GPs-transgender-champions-1m-proposal.html
Prof Winston has a piece within it, where he demonstrates that he does know what he is talking about, unlike the transfascists:
"Before any medical treatment, a diagnosis should be made and the underlying cause of symptoms understood.
If not, mistakes and complications occur. Patients are particularly in danger when any treatment is complex, and this is highly relevant to gender dysphoria.
This rare condition results in some people feeling extremely unhappy about their gender and wanting to change it.
It is good that our society has become increasingly sympathetic and less judgmental about such requests.
But we are embarking on complex and, mostly, irreversible treatments involving young patients.
And we have little idea of the underlying mechanisms causing dysphoria. If we are to avoid doing harm, much more research is urgently needed.
Some people who undergo gender change may become deeply unhappy later in life. I have experienced this in my own infertility clinic.
Another problem is the risk of the hormone treatment given to these young people, often when they are under the legal age of consent. Moreover, serious complications may occur following reassignment surgery.
One recent international study, among several others, reports that after reconstructive surgery to the vagina or breasts, the overall complication rate may be as high as 40 per cent and further operations are needed to put things right.
The fashioning or reconstruction of male genitalia is even more fraught.
I have been virulently criticised by some of those who have undergone this treatment successfully.
It is disturbing to be called bigoted and homophobic. Yet I was the first UK doctor to offer free IVF to lesbian women (in spite of massive protests and nasty publicity), and I tried to treat several patients for infertility long after their transgender procedure.
One tweet suggested I was quoting only international figures for surgical complications but not NHS ones.
As it happens, the greatest experience in surgical gender reassignment is not in Britain.
This is why, some years ago, I visited the famous Cleveland clinic in America, and Professor Shan Ratnam in Singapore, to learn how they did their expert surgery – which they admitted was not always successful.
Some research indicates possible reasons for gender dysphoria. At the Genesis Research Trust at Imperial College, we have funded studies of hormonal and chemical influences before birth.
Some show long-term effects of hormonal treatment on children later in life. I am also involved in the GUSTO study in Singapore, which reveals that foetuses exposed to certain hormones may have physical changes in their brains by the age of four. And they have different cognitive function – they actually think differently.
This could be relevant because certain mammals which have large litters tend to have equal numbers of males and females in the womb.
One extensively studied rodent usually gives birth to 12 babies, but occasionally, there may an unequal proportion of males and females. If, for example, there are nine males but only three females, the females commonly have altered fertility and can show male patterns of behaviour.
They are also likely to be more aggressive. And most interesting, this trait is passed to their children when they conceive.
Could this happen in humans? We do not know, but it is clear that unusual exposure to various hormones in pregnancy is not so uncommon and may risk ill-health.
We also know from IVF procedures and ultrasound scanning soon after conception that some human pregnancies start as twins, but one embryo does not develop and disappears.
So-called ‘lost twin syndrome’ could be important. If this failing embryo is of the opposite sex and, like the experimental rodent produces the ‘wrong’ hormones in early pregnancy, it may produce similar effects.
Many people are happy and grateful for gender reassignment. But there’s a problem.
We need to choose when we implement this treatment. Should we treat young children, perhaps by the age of nine before the onset of puberty, or adolescents who are increasingly unhappy about their gender?
A nine-year-old who is too young to think in an adult way is at risk. Committing them to hormone therapy which will delay puberty may have undesirable and irreversible long-term effects.
But waiting until adolescence may be a bigger problem.
Teenagers have an immature brain which may not assess risk properly. They are on a rollercoaster of constantly changing thoughts and feelings.
Until we understand the underlying reason for gender dysphoria more clearly, we must be extremely cautious."