Times Scotland article - 16 and 17 year olds referred for surgery

Well, the journal article is dated Aug 2019 and the FOI Dec 2019, so it seems so.

BetsyM00 so they lied even when this information was already in the public domain?

Why has my post been hidden @MNHQ? It only contained a link to the original story in the Telegraph.

I can't help wondering whether part of this is the idea of breasts as something that can easily be fixed if they regret later on (indeed, I believe a prominent surgeon in the US said as much) - after all, silicone tits are just the same no?

No money for CAMHS, but we'll lop of your breasts as a stop gap.

“Chest reconstruction surgery”

I echo all the horror of all PPs on this thread. How ON EARTH can a surgeon agree to doing this??

This is the article from a child mental health journal about the 16 year old who was referred, approved and on a waiting list (estimated time before op: 3 months) before deciding to have the double mastectomy done privately at 16.5 years old.

It was subsequent to this that the NHS said zero under 18s were referred for this surgery (which they call chest reconstruction)

The crux of all this starts IMO with the construction of the 'trans child'. Which immediately seems to set them apart from the normal safeguarding of children.

This narrative, largely pushed by lobby groups like Mermaids should never have been allowed a foothold in the medical community. As a group they should have remained as children assessed for/experiencing gender dysphoria and not 'trans children'.

She, too, changed her mind. Fair play to her, given the age of her and her spouse and that they couldn't afford the time to go on NHS waiting lists, they paid privately for their (successful) IVF.

I'm split on this. I do think a number of adults are denied services but we have no idea how many are like you and my friend in this because we don't have data. (tbh, it's such a sensitive area, I've no idea how many people would be OK about being asked if they changed their mind etc.)

I remember going to see two doctors at the age of 27 and married, asking to be sterilized so I couldn't become pregnant. Both absolutely point blank refused to even consider it at my age. No discussion, nothing.
And actually, they turned out to be right, I did charge my mind.

The substantial disconnect in the provision of services for people, many of which seem to rely upon a foundation of suicide ideation or threats, will become readily apparent at some point. People will question why the NHS was so willing to be coerced by one group and ignore the needs of vast numbers of people who need MH support or treatment for other conditions.

I'd be interested to know what other cosmetic surgeries are funded so readily by the NHS? Particularly those deemed cosmetic but that have a medical purpose...
The most comparable example would be a teen girl with very large breasts causing back pain, who wants a breast reduction. Would they do that as readily as the medically non-essential mastectomy?

The whole "one rule for the sparkly special trans people, another for everyone else" things boils my piss. And it's rather frightening evidence of how this ideology has infiltrated different levels of different organisations. Another example is around suicidal ideation. This is something that in general is treated badly by the NHS (mental health care in general is poor), but there are layers of psychiatric (non)understanding, and cultural reasons built up over decades if not centuries, why certain patients are basically deemed unhelpable and left to potentially kill themselves. Often labelled attention seekers etc even when it's obvious they're reeling from early abuse and so on. But suddenly all this psychiatric "knowledge" and ways of approaching things is discarded as soon as it's a trans issue and suicidal ideation is taken seriously and somehow the clinching argument. It's really odd the way established knowledge and practices are just ignored like this (normally trying to change them is an uphill battle over decades).

This is going to be a massive scandal. How many children will be harmed first though?

One of the few things that was clear from Emma Barnett's interview with Christine Jardine on WH yesterday is that the age of consent to treatment is different in Scotland.

How can you be fully informed when you haven't even seen your breasts. And how did Sam take a photo?

But yes, I saw FWS tweets. Apparently in the initial FOI they denied ever gaving referred under 18s. It was only when they spotted the case report that the NHS Trust admitted it. The child in the reported case had surgery at 17.

(The teenager in question appears to be 16, judging by the FWS post - not sure of its source. The account is written by one of Sam's parents, justifying why they paid for the surgery privately to avoid the long waiting list on the NHS, and they say that Sam had been referred for the surgery at the age of 16.)

twitter.com/ForwomenScot/status/1439889279300349953?s=20

ForWomenScot were tweeting about this the other day, so that's probably where The Times got the story. I found this absolutely horrifying. This young person's mental health appears to be in a very bad way and the body dysmorphia is clearly a psychological issue. In what world do we now perform surgery to try to alleviate a psychological problem which research indicates usually gets a lot better at the end of puberty anyway?

The article says Fifty-one teenagers aged 16 and 17 who were born as females were sent to hospitals in England to undergo further assessment for “specialist chest reconstruction” over the past six years

I suppose it's possible that they then changed their minds having had the consultations about double mastectomies ? Maybe if they came across some ethical safeguarding aware medics who pointed out that 16 / 17 is very young to decide to have both your breasts removed, especially when you haven't yet reached full maturity? But if there were no ethical medics around, just those signed up to the trans mantras then.....

Very worrying that it doesn't seem to be known whether any of these adolescents were operated on before the age of 18, saying " it is unlikely" is hardly reassuring. Why don't they know? Or do they know and don't wish to admit that minors are receiving double mastectomies?

In their world view, female breasts are perfectly normal for teenage "boys". They're more common than any DSD, and we've stopped performing unnecessary surgery on children with DSDs

That is the million dollar question. Why must adults have self ID so they don't have to do anything besides declare themselves whilst simultaneously children must have access to puberty blockers and surgery..

Yet in 2019 Sandyford Clinic said this.

The operation’s aim is the exact opposite!

And, indeed, what is the purpose?

In their world view, female breasts are perfectly normal for teenage "boys". They're more common than any DSD, and we've stopped performing unnecessary surgery on children with DSDs.

So why the unnecessary surgery on "boys" with healthy breasts?

And we all know the term “breast reconstruction” surgery is deliberately confusing. The operation’s aim is the exact opposite!