Open Letter to Dr Hilary Cass

Do you have a source for it be ineffective? What other treatment are more effective?

I might have gone down the transgender route too, but fortunately I survived a confused childhood, accepted reality, and grew up to be a gender-non conforming adult female human.

I was lucky - nobody suggested to me that I could 'transition' to something which in fact I could never be, i.e. male, and nobody suggested damaging my body with medication or surgery just because my body is a woman's body.

What did you transition from and to?

because people can’t change sex.

Hopefully that's been CC'd to the Board of NIHR with appropriate edits.

‘Transgender’ is a potential but unevidenced and often ineffective solution to the contested condition of ‘gender dysphoria’.

There are other treatments or approaches that are far more effective, non invasive and that will not destroy long term health and fertility.

As puberty resolves the vast majority of cases (and physical, cognitive and emotional development doesn’t fully complete until around 25), there should be absolutely no ‘trans’ children. The existence of ‘trans’ adults is more a matter of terminology then science.

You experienced what as a child that made you a “transgender” child? Can you explain without using stereotypes?

It doesn't happen suddenly, but it is accepted that children do not have the capacity to make serious or life-changing decisions - e.g. you can't enter into a legal contract until you are 18.

Children under 18 go through many stages and states and may be confused about the gender stereotypes that society forces on boys and girls.

The ideal would be for them to be supported to ignore 'boys have to be like this' and 'girls have to be like that' and not to be told 'if you're a boy who is like that you might be a girl' or 'if you are a girl who is like this you might be a boy'.

It's about giving children and young people the space and freedom to become the adult human female or adult human male they want to be, without feeling that they are in some way 'wrong' and need to transition into something else.

I do. I experienced it myself as a child and it never went away until I transitioned in my early 20s

It’s a great question. What is ‘being transgender’? For a child or an adult? Genuine question. It seems that throughout time there have been a tiny number of people who believe they are internally the opposite sex - are they transgender because they feel this way? What about a teen girl who is appalled by her body starting to change, doesn’t like men looking at her, hates her breasts, reads about trans online and thinks ‘if I were male I wouldn’t need to deal with this’ - is she transgender? What about as I saw on a thread here today, someone mentioned knowing their boy was a girl when he was preverbal ‘because he pointed at female characters and seemed to identify with them’. Is that baby transgender? And of course what about adult men who like to cross dress and masturbate in womens loos - transgender?

At what age do children "suddenly" become transgender? 2, 6, 13 3/4?

Or maybe there is no such thing as a transgender child and over 18s can be or do whatever they want?

“To accept the validity of such a trial is to accept the existence of the transgender child.”

Do these children suddenly become transgender at 18 or do you really think there is no such thing as being transgender?