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

The kids that go from ‘puberty blockers’ (really prostate cancer drugs) to cross sex hormones never develop fertility or sexual function.

Trans adults who argue for child transition often have children or preserve their fertility through gamete storage, and have fulfilling sexual relationships, yet their advocacy for younger treatments denies this to kids too young to decide. I think that’s pretty shitty of them.

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.

Yeah and all those women prescribed Thalidomide should just have been grateful someone gave them something for their morning sickness.

Oh and she isn't suing.

I think the 50/50 split may be due to how you worded the OP as I voted YANBU whereas having reread your post I should have voted the other way.
Looking at all the responses on the thread very few agree with you.

This is what happens when you mess about the development of children.

Stories like this will come up more and more because decisions made, when children have not had time to mature, research and understand what transitioning actually means.

Support, information, understanding first, then when they are legally an adult and still want to transition then that can start.

She was a mentally ill child. The NHS handled it appallingly. Hundreds of girls disturbed by puberty are going through the same experience with the NHS. It is shocking it has to go to court to be stopped.

I mean, FFS, they told this distressed teenage girl, that, yes, she could become a boy through hormones and surgery. Are they on glue?

The kid had a loose grip on reality and was demanding the impossible. The NHS did not have to respond by pretending her fantasy could be reality and so give her drugs and surgery that could not work and would definitely damage her for life.

I agree with you, transitioning seem to have got so protected and questioning choices deemed politically incorrect that I wonder if the doctors disagreed with the procedures but were unable to comment as rules and regulations about protected characteristics (race, religion, disability, sexual inclination, etc) prevented them to question the choice in more depth.

It seems that we are tying up the hands of doctors because patients “always know better”, we are not letting them do their work.

... or it may be that all the old psychological assessments that used to take place before a procedure have been affected by budget cuts.

We all predicted this.

Children cant drink alcohol, can't marry or consent to sex, yet they're mature enough to make a permanent life changing decision and have surgery/ blockers based on their feelings!

This was always going to end in tears...affirming a mental health condition isn't the way to 'fix' it.

Crazy! Personally I think Transgender is something that the NHS should put on the back of the funding pile. Especially as they apparently fund lots of peripheral things around it - like permanent hair removal for men going to women - as a 'psychological' issue.

Poor girl, if she as a teen had asked for drugs to make her grow taller because she felt too short for her authentic body or to be sterilised because she never wanted children the doctors would rightly have pushed back against it.

They won't even sterilise grown women with complete families in most cases.

Why is the one exception that means they don't think 'first cause no harm'? Even with the suicide risk argument the drugs and surgery don't actually improve the outcomes to any meaningful extent.

if the NHS had prevented her....they would have been accused of and sued for prejudice against trans people. We already know that.

Of course a doctor can prescribe further psychiatric treatment and observation instead. Mermaids don't sue, they would lose. What they do is:

• Coach children on what to say.
• Guide children to ask for particular doctors who are more receptive.
• Host events for medical professionals and lobby them, in promotion of the 'affirmative approach'.
• Encourage targeted complaints about doctors within GIDS who make a decision that transition is not an appropriate treatment.

(They are fairly open about all this).

The NHS can't do right for doing wrong here

Well they can. They can improve and increase their mental health services instead of offering to give people surgery and hormones which can’t change their sex and often leaves the patient with even more health issues, both mental and physical.

OP, your post is inaccurate, this is a real person you are talking about. It's a very serious issue and its important to be factual.

@RoryGillmoresEvilTwin I wonder if her parents were involved in consenting. Often the medics seem to try and cut them out and claim the young person is “Gillick competent”. I know of a school that wanted to change a young person’s name on the register without parental consent at 14. They claimed the child would be Gillick competent - and more so as they neared 16.

Yet a young person cannot sign up for NHS dental work until 18 - still need parental consent!

I think she’s exceptionally brave and selfless to be doing this. I have nothing but sympathy for her.

Long overdue. This has happened because adult lobby groups have been allowed to influence what type of treatment children are given. Unethical and, as we are seeing, with disastrous consequences for children who don't understand the consequences of subsequent infertility, lack of a satisfying sex life and a life time of drugs and surgery.
Personally I hope that someone sues the groups going into schools to groom children into believing that can be born in the wrong body.

I also think part of the issue we have now is the click, I want it now why can't I have it now society.

When a 'no' should suffice.

Come back when you're an actual adult and have had years of counselling and therapy. Until then no you can't have hormones and irreversible operations. Because you're a child.

It's become a worrying trend. When children who want to change themselves into something they aren't becomes the norm instead of the exception then we have a real issue on our hands.

Simple answer is to take it off the nhs as a treatment. You can’t get a verruca frozen off in some areas but you can transition.

Exactly! You cannot change your biological sex, so treatments to indulge that fantasy should be at one's own personal cost.

I can't see the voting option.

YABU.
I'm on my phone, but even viewing it as the desktop version, I still can't see it.

I noticed about 2 weeks ago that I suddenly can't see any voting options, on any thread, whereas I used to be able. Not sure what's changed!

I love the part where she said she wasn’t willing to speak to anyone who may have tried to talk her out of it and it was 100% what she wanted yet now she’s suing?!

A law for this has to be put in place. No transitions should be done before a real age such as 25. If they can claim under 25’s shouldn’t be in jail because their brain hasn’t properly developed then nobody should be going through such a massive decision before that age.

InTheSummerhouse You can say the same about the resources that the NHS is currently using in GIDS. It could use the money it currently spends on surgery and 'puberty blocker' drugs - which incidentally aren't licensed for what GIDS currently uses them for - and funnel that into improving mental health provision instead.

One person asking for a judicial review doesn't mean that someone else waiting for a hip replacement gets delayed as a result - the NHS budgets don't work that way.

However you are right in that it ultimately is all one pot. And that's why it's so crucial that the treatments that the NHS offer are effective AND appropriate. In this case, Keira is arguing that as a troubled teenager she should have been supported using mental health protocols, rather than being sent down a permanent drugs and surgery pathway after only three hours of consultation(!), from medical professionals who are supposed to be gate-keeping against exactly this type of scenario.

I love the part where she said she wasn’t willing to speak to anyone who may have tried to talk her out of it and it was 100% what she wanted yet now she’s suing?!

All teenagers are adamant they know their own minds! And SHE ISN’T SUING!

Something like 35 clinical staff have left the Tavistock over the last couple of years because they are unhappy about the "affirmation only" approach they are forced to take.

(I don't have a link to hand but I'm sure someone will)

Teenagers are notoriously fickle and many would have changed their mind by time they've grown up years later. This will be the first of many cases over the next few year's IMO

I love the part where she said she wasn’t willing to speak to anyone who may have tried to talk her out of it and it was 100% what she wanted yet now she’s suing?!

She was a child. How unusual is it for a teenager to be hell-bent on a course of action, which looks like a really bad idea to an adult. There's a thread going on at the moment where the OP is trying to get her DD to stay safe online and not engage with people on the periphery who are encouraging poor decision making. Just because her DD is determined to go off to meet a complete stranger doesn't mean her Mum should throw her hands up and endorse her wishes.

Children don't understand risk in the way that adults do. We know this, that's why we have safeguards in place and that's why we do our level best to try and protect them whilst teaching them about decisions and consequences.

the affirmation only approach used by the NHS currently is going to result in many many more cases like this. Therapists and doctors aren't allowed to explore the deeper issues underlying the need to transition (eg many, if not most transgender patients have history of trauma or ASD) so they smile, nod and prescribe blockers (which many believe put a gentle pause on puberty, which is utter codswallop) and then further surgery and then irreversible damage is caused.