She is NOT suing them.
In this country, if the government, or any, 'emanation of the state' (so a body controlled by the state, or mostly funded by them) is doing something that breaks the law, exceeds their powers under the law, or is inherently so wrong it should be restrained, there is only one way to stop them, if they won't negotiate or stop. You go to the High Court, and apply for a Judicial Review.
A Judicial Review is what it says: a judge will review what is happening and decide if it's lawful, or not. If not, then an order can be made to stop whatever it is happening, or change what is happening.
Parents of disabled children being denied what the law says they should have, people abused by police acting unlawfully, people acting against local authorities breaking the law - they all go to judicial review.
Keira Bell isn't suing anyone or asking for any money at all. She is asking that a judge looks at what is happening to children - people under the age of 18 - and young people, who are being allowed to make lifelong choices with, arguably, lack of full understanding of what it is they are signing up to.
35 clinicians have left GIDS at the Tavistock, the country's clinic treating transgender children, many saying they can't be party to what is happening. 75% of the patients they now treat are girls, at least half of whom have strong indications of autism, a third being diagnosed (girls are massively underdiagnosed, as they present very differently to boys and staff in schools often miss it). There are so many reasons an autistic girl might jump on gender as being the answer to all that adolescence makes especially, and exponentially harder for them. But most will grow into happy adult women, often lesbians, if allowed to do so (autistic people are statistically much more likely to be gay). There is also a heavy overlap with traumatic past events, eating disorders, and other mental health problems which, it is claimed, are not being properly explored in favour of immediate affirmation. The clinicians at GIDS apparently have a dark joke that, given their work, there won't be any gay people left in the next generation. That is a joke that should alarm anyone.
Puberty blockers are drugs for men with prostate cancer. They have not been tested on children and are prescribed off label. What we do know is that they cause menopause type symptoms in otherwise healthy adolescents, and that as those adolescents continue to grow, and hormones are vital to our growth and development, there must be major question marks over what they do - not an insistence that they just, "put puberty on pause". They also lead to a 100% take-up of cross sex hormones, which make those adolescents infertile and (in the case of boys previously treated with puberty blockers) may mean they never develop a libido or the capacity for sexual pleasure. The hormones have serious health risks, as our bodies require them to develop and we are anticipating the correct range for our biological sex. You are taking healthy people and creating a medical condition that has lifelong effects, none of which are as yet fully understood. And cross sex hormones in adolescents also create irreversible physical changes - as Keira Bell points out - which make it incredibly hard if those young people later want to change their minds. So 100% of those given puberty blockers go on to transition, while without blockers, 89%-90% will desist and grow up happy in their birth sex, but often gay. Internalised homophobia can make a lot of kids assume they must be the opposite sex, and straight (in fact in Pakistan and Iran, where being gay is a capital crime and the death penalty follows, transition is funded by the state and protection against discrimination strict - transing the gay away is not unheard of in extremely homophobic countries). There is no way the 100% transition rate can be down to the right kids being offered the blockers, either. Mental health care is subjective in clinical terms, and there is no test for gender dysphoria. It seems that adolescence is a natural cure in almost all cases, and denying adolescence denies the cure. Allowing kids to relax into their birth sex, and to develop an idea about who they are as people that can combine how feminine or masculine they are comfortable being, and what sexuality is their own, with a birth sex is surely optimal? I know several adult women who said they longed to be boys as kids, but are happy as adult women. All are mothers. Some are gay. All are so grateful they didn't have to contend with this in their youth.
As for surgery... trans surgery involves removing testicles and a penis and creating a cavity that cannot be allowed to heal, for men, and for women it involves a radical mastectomy, closure of the vagina and creating a 'penis' from the flesh of the arm. It also involves radical surgery on the urethra for both men and women - which obviously has dramatic risks in terms of continence. The majority of those having that surgery will struggle with wetting themselves, bluntly. TENA lady should not be a requirement for healthy young people. And then there's post-mastectomy pain syndrome - very common, and very debilitating. There are an awful lot of nerve endings in breasts. That pain syndrome is well worth it if the alternative is death from cancer, but that's not the case with transition surgery, is it?
80% of trans people now have no surgery at all. While this makes many women really uncomfortable when told that a fully intact adult male can now access communal changing areas just by telling the reception staff, "I'm a woman" there is a major relief to that in human rights terms. The idea that dramatic and extreme cosmetic surgery - because plastic surgery is what this is, however huge the surgical interventions performed - can alter sex is selling people a chimera. It isn't possible. And traumatised and disturbed adolescents should not be told this bullshit.
When it's pointed out that the kids at the Tavistock are really disturbed, the answer is often given, "that's because of transphobia!" The dishonesty and manipulation of that answer is disgusting: many of these kids are survivors of extremely traumatic events, and half are autistic. None of that has anything whatsoever to do with gender identity. And the other horribly dishonest claim made: that half of trans identifying kids try to kill themselves. GIDS at Tavistock say the children and young people they see are no more likely to do that than any other group seen by CAMHS, that suicide is incredibly rare, and that this lying claim actually harms the resilience and peace of mind of those it purports to help. A recognised risk factor in adolescent suicide is telling those adolescents they are at heightened risk of suicide. That statistic came from an online survey, self-selected and advertised to anyone wanting to do it and offering a prize draw reward for doing so, and with no guards against anyone completing it more than once. From that survey, 28 respondents said that they identified as trans and under the age of 25, and of those, 13 said that they had considered suicide. That tiny, self-selected, unknown group's statements on an online quiz is the sole source of that claim. For survey data to be valid, you need it to be probability weighted, from a very large number of people, and for those people to be screened to ensure they represent the public. They can't be self selected and remain valid as a data set, because by definition only people interested in something will apply to do it. This incredibly weak data is constantly reported as the reason kids should be blindly affirmed - even though there is no evidence whatsoever that children and young people who are gender dysphoric are any more at risk. It's appalling that parents are literally told, "better a live son than a dead daughter..." when trying to establish how best to help their child.
Keira Bell is very brave. We've seen the rage aimed at any women speaking out on this - you can imagine the death, rape and violent threats she will be contending with for doing this, and she isn't suing anyone for anything so there is no money to be made. She just wants to protect other children and young people from what happened to her.
She is not suing anyone for anything. She's trying to get the courts to examine whether a child or young person is capable of making such huge and life altering decisions at an age they aren't allowed to buy alcohol, vote, or drive.
Keira Bell is trying to protect your children, and mine. I think we owe her a debt of gratitude. And that's all she wants to do - there is no money here for her.