AIBU about transgender person taking legal action against NHS for allowing her to transition? [[title edited by MNHQ on OP's behalf]]

[HollyGoLoudly1]

A 23 year old is taking legal action against the NHS for giving her treatment to transition to male as a teenager. She has since decided to live as a female and is taking legal action against the NHS as they should have 'challenged her' more when she wanted to transition rather than giving her the treatment.

The NHS can't do right for doing wrong here. Cash strapped to the point of collapse and being sued for giving someone the treatment they asked for. I despair.

AIBU or is this absolutely ludicrous?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51676020
from MNHQ - this title and OP originally said the person concerned was suing the NHS. They are in fact just taking legal action. The OP has asked us to make this clear but you may find some of the early posts reflect the words in the original title

With regards to ‘the NHS can’t win’ - they can try and do right.

RoryGillmoresEvilTwin Many parents are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They are told that if they offer anything other than unquestioning support then their child is at risk of suicide, and that they are bigots and transphobic if they challenge the 'treatment' being offered. Schools, youth groups, charities and even social services in some cases, are telling children that their feelings and wishes are paramount and that their parents do not have to be consulted or even told about a child expressing an interest in transitioning.

The NHS and specifically GIDS needs to remember the guiding principle of healthcare: First, do no harm.

She was 15, had a difficult home life, had been heavily influenced by online chats, and says she only had 3 appointments, each 1 hour long before they decided to start her transitioning.

Any professional or professional service should have known this was completely inadequate.

TBH, if also expect psych professionals to see the glaring commonalities with grooming or radicalisation.

I’m quite sure she will win her case. Good.

YABU, but can we refer to her as a young woman because this is now what and who she says she is. She is a young woman who was badly let down by a bunch of so-called professionals and a system that was high on woke and low on critical thinking and real duty of care. Good luck to her, her bravery might save many similar young women.

This is such a difficult issue, and I think that in the future it will be thought of as one of the biggest medical scandals since the inception of the NHS.

Yes. Not just the NHS, this is going to be world wide scandal, on a par with Thalidomide.

I'm pleased this brave young woman has come forward and is taking this action.

YABU, OP

I hope she wins. It is one thing for an adult to transition but quite another for a child.

YABU. If we were talking about an adult you might not be, but the NHS should not be rubber stamping life-changing procedures on children just because they ask for it.

Not unreasonable at all. I think suing is silly but it might stop kids being given blockers and hormones so soon and then surgery.

I’m delighted to see this happening.

Transitioning young people in this way is massive safeguarding failure.

You cannot equate puberty blockers to contraception. One has a lifelong mental and emotional and physical impact and the other is easily reversible.

Let’s keep in mind that women in their thirties are frequently denied hysterectomies because ‘they might change their minds’. They are essentially not considered competent to make their own medical decisions.

But a teenager who wants to change sex? Sure, why not? Teenagers know everything and they never change, do they?

Keira is a brave young woman. Using public services to support young people making irreversible decisions on the basis of the actions of pressure groups rather than scientific evidence is nothing short of disgraceful. I hope that GIDS is hung out to dry.

I don’t like people suing the NHS over accidents or understandable mistakes. But this experimental treatment on children is a disgrace.

This child was pushed along the transing path in her teens. Only 16 when she was given powerful drugs, after just three appointments, to block her natural hormones and make her look masculine. Obviously this caused huge damage to her body, most of it irreversible. I am furious that this was allowed, let alone done on the NHS.

At 16, you’re not old enough to drive or vote. So who thinks you should make life-changing decisions based on slogans by lobby groups?
This has been done to many other children, and far more are in the pipeline thanks to schools allowing pressure groups to dictate the agenda.

I hope the doctors involved in this are struck off for life.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51676020

Keira isn’t suing. There is no compensation claim. It’s a judicial review, completely different thing.

The NHS can't do right for doing wrong here. Cash strapped to the point of collapse and being sued for giving someone the treatment they asked for.

I agree individuals should be responsible for their actions, and the young woman in question is quite open that she thought she wanted tansition as a teen.

I also feel incredible sympathy for doctors who are targeted for complaints by a very well funded charity if they don't support the American 'afirmative approach' which has no evidence base and has been rejected by nihce.

BUT:

NHS gender services do not consider or treat any other MH issues when someone presents with Gender Dysphoria- they don't have the money. Gender Dysphoria has very high remission rates without transition (about 80%, even in more servere cases).

I think the NHS should be employing talking therapy and treatment of co-morbid MH conditions extensively before chemical and surgical intervention for GD.

I think we should be incredibly cautious before letting anyone under 18 start on the pathway to sterilisation and body modification.

First do no harm

I'm glad this is happening and I hope they all sue. Hopefully it'll change things.
Minors cannot consent to this.

YABVU OP. A 15 yr old wouldn't be sterilised under any other circumstances.

The parents may not have consented if the likes of certain agencies hadnt "trained" every conceivable organisation that if you dont affirm they will kill themselves.

It's a massive systemic failure to children and teenagers and even older people tbh.

She's not suing the NHS as far as I'm aware. There's no claim for compensation etc. It's a judicial review and it's much needed imo. As for the NHS can't do right for doing wrong, I disagree. I think a more cautious, "watchful waiting" approach would be supported by a great majority of people. There'll always be someone left unhappy but the NHS should be setting an example of doing the right thing, and I think it's pretty clear cut that the right thing is not letting children make life altering decisions that could leave them infertile before they are old enough to know what they want out of life.

YABVU OP. A 15 yr old wouldn't be sterilised under any other circumstances

On That note there was a case of a 14 year old in the papers A few years back who suffered from an extreme form.of put that she was suicidal every month . It severely impacted her life. Her mum had the same condition and the only thing that cured it was a hysterectomy.

Which was not granted for the 14 year old....

So OP

Looks like yabu and also interesting that this young woman isn't actually Street any money so your OP is wrong

If you're worried about NHS finances, I'd imagine that the cost of puberty blockers +cross sex hormones (for life?) + Multiple surgeries ie breast removal at the least possibly more

Outweighs the cost of proper therapy at outset

*at 15 they would've still had parental responsibility and as such, the final say?

No. The entire case is about whether older teens can consent to this, as they do for things such as the contraceptive pill, under a thing known as ‘Gillick competency’.

The gender service say they are comparable, Keira thinks it isn’t. The judge will decide.*

This is very important.

A number of "guidelines" created by organisations promoting the transitioning of children and young people advocate that teachers don't necessarily need to involve parents if a child discloses that they're "trans."

This is a safeguarding issue and against safeguarding good practice.

Children and yp are "self diagnosing" as trans, sometimes with parental support.

Yp are learning the "correct" phrases to use in appointments from the Internet in order to get what they want. De transed women are describing these scenarios.

The gatekeeping is out of control.

One day people will look back and be utterly horrified that this was ever considered to be a good idea.

I sincerely hope that we get to that day as soon as possible, because in the meantime who knows how many children are going to go through this process and then end up in Keira's position, understandably enraged and full of regret that the system didn't protect them at their most vulnerable?

She sounds so ungreatful. Got free care and treatment and now wants to sue them because she regrets HER choice. She should be banned from any more NHS treatment.

if the NHS had prevented her/him/them (not sure which pronoun to use as not clear from OP) they would have been accused of and sued for prejudice against trans people. We already know that.

She/he /they made that decision and was supported by various people - and has now had a change of heart.

Meanwhile those actually waiting for heart surgery, cancer treatment, brain scans, or for mental health servcies can just wait longer while this person sues the arse off the people who really did try to do everything to help.

Unfortunately legal action is the only way that the current crazy situation can be resolved. The NHS gave into sustained lobbying from adult trans activists and the government looked the other way because it’s a controversial issue. Lottery funding was given to creepy lobby groups despite the harm they are causing to children. So now very young kids are being told in school they can pick their own gender and that drugs can ‘fix’ them if they have identity issues like the ‘wrong body’. But most teens have identity issues and a bit of self loathing at some point! Girls in particular mostly hate growing breasts and periods, it sucks! They need to be taught to accept who they are / be grateful for and enjoy their healthy body, (eg that periods do suck but multiple orgasms rock), not ‘supported’ to try to fight biology in a way that will permanently harm them physically.

In particular children with autism / mental health problems are currently ‘supported’ into a track that leads towards permanent physical changes / infertility, often against the parents’ wishes in a way that doesn’t exist in any other area of medicine. Doctors and teachers are encouraged by lobby groups to conceal information from ‘unsupportive’ parents. Safeguarding principles go out of the window: the child’s wishes are supposed to reign supreme no matter how random / influenced by others they have been. Social workers who question what’s happening to vulnerable children in their care are accused of transphobia - even JK Rowling got a load of hate for saying biological sex is real.

(Also, a lot of the girls who want to become boys have been rape victims and aren’t dealing with what happened to them in the best way.)

I think it is child abuse to give puberty blockers to / allow any kind of medical ‘transition’ of a child. Read the data: most children who take puberty blockers experience an increase in depression and suicidal thoughts. The research on the long term effect of puberty blockers is, to quote the doctors, “terrible”.

Doctors are supposed to ‘do no harm’. The NHS is answerable for what it has done, but more importantly those who fund the NHS will continue to ignore the problems until it becomes financially an issue on their spreadsheet - unfortunately litigation is the only way to so that.

The money the NHS spends on helping healthy people mess with their hormones and private parts would be much better spent on fighting cancer / neonatal units.

I applaud the brave people who brought this litigation against the NHS and I hope they win.