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

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

You do realise that the trans lobby wants them to have priority over everyone else when it comes to NHS treatment.

But it is disgraceful that at present my 14 yr old could be put on hormones that will have an irreversible effect, yet I at 40 and 3 DC would likely be refused sterilisation incase I decided I wanted another.

Looking forward to seeing Mermaids’ stance on this. Arseholes

I don’t even think this is just about the NHS. Well it is obviously, but even if this 15 (at the time) year old had enough money to go private and bypass the NHS altogether it still shouldn’t have been allowed to happen. I agree with whoever said this is just the tip of the iceberg.

But the ship needs to hit the iceberg fast and it needs to be hit hard, Titanic level hard. Because if changes to the law are introduced it will be very hard to back-pedal on that. Look at the state Labour are currently in.

I’m 100% behind her. The Tavistock Clinic has behaved in some very questionable ways, hence the haemorrhage of clinical staff from it. It’s ruined lives and needs to be stopped. Nobody below the age of 18 should be allowed to undertake life changing procedures.

sues the arse off the people who really did try to do everything to help.

SHE ISN’T SUING!

We predicted this. I think the floodgates will open.

Surely if she is suing anyone she should be suing her parents. They were the ones who gave consent

I thought parents consent wasnt needed? Gillick competence and that.

Surely if she is suing anyone she should be suing her parents. They were the ones who gave consent?

And all the other comments that say she should be suing her parents. Parents are often excluded from the decision making. This is what lobby groups have been very successful in doing. Giving children agency over their own bodies (I personally think there is another agenda at play - that if children can make decision around what 'sex' they are then they have agency to consent to sex) but parents who object to children being walked down this route by lobby groups are branded as transphobic.
I hope she is successful and I hope many other children and their parents sue in the future.
It is the only way to get the message across that you cannot change sex regardless of what surgery is undertaken or how you mutilate your body.

Surely if she is suing anyone

SHE ISN’T SUING ANYONE!

Quite rightly too. I am fucking furious for the young people who have been experimented on so far.

I wonder what legal arguments will be used in this case that won't then have to be applied to all cases of under 18s giving consent for medical treatment?

Can under 18 for example, consent to an abortion? What if they later regret that decision, could they invoke this case as proof that the NHS shouldn't have believed that it is what they wanted?

This feels like it's a pivotal moment around issues of consent for medical treatment and will be interesting to see the results.

First do no harm. This was bound to happen. Ridiculous situation with a ridiculous lobby perpetuating a myth to children that they can change sex.

Why is the NHS even offering this treatment in the first place?

All while other essential service and departments are cut to the bone. Postnatal wards are chronically understaffed.
Mental health, both children's and adults have waiting lists a mile long.
People are waiting hours on trolleys because A&E wards are bursting at the seams with nowhere to move people to.

I really do think the NHS needs to have more verruccas, ie things we will no longer treat.

The difference is with an abortion wait and see isn't really an option.

Can other people see DuLangs posts?

Purpletigers Sun 01-Mar-20 12:08:02 And so it begins.

This.

I dont care about Godwinning. Quite frankly this is verging on eugenics.
Performing permanent and disfiguring procedures on children who do not have the capacity to give informed consent.

I often wondered where this has come from and what the point of it all is. I have a theory and it sounds so batshit crazy that I’ve never told anybody for fear of being laughed at but I think there’s legs to it. I’m probably going to be called a tinfoil-hatter and a couple of years ago I would have said the same but I think there might be some truth to it.

yabu - she was started on this path as a child, railroaded along it, with no attempt made to explore whether her self diagnosis as a child was right or wrong.

would a child be allowed to self-diagnose as having any other condition which involved surgery and just be given the surgery without exploiting whether any less drastic treatment would work?

the nhs has been criminally negligent in this and many other cases. some of those surgically transitioned don't currently have any regrets but may yet in future, and there are a load of detransitioners who have been seriously let down.

if this case makes the nhs think twice before doing the sane again then hurrah. I hope that the young person in question donates any compensation to helping other detransitioners though.

I think it's a brilliant antidote to the 'model of affirmative care' the nhs has been forced into. Especually around children and young people who won't even have fully developed brains until 25 (something i wish scientists had known when i was young!). To say an 11 year old has the capacity to understand the potential harm caused by hormone blockers, when the nhs staff themselves don't even know, is exactlt the kind of slippery slope paedophiles àre pushing for, and have beem pushing for for a very long time.

argh exploiting = exploring

It's excellent news that there is going to be a judicial review of the rules on this - I just hope that if/when they decide that clinics like the Tavistock have been moving to puberty blockers/hormones too quickly, some provision gets made for these children to get some other form of support such as counselling. These children are not coming to these clinics because they are happy. They're in distress, and they need help, but it's not at all clear that the help they need is transition. God it's like any other serious diagnosis. Before my dad got diagnosed with alzheimer's his GP sent him off for kidney function tests and to a psychiatrist to rule out other causes of memory loss. It sounds as if nobody has really bothered to find out if there was any other reason for these children to have gender dysphoria.

This brave woman is sticking her head above the parapet to get this issue reviewed. As others have said. She sought a judicial review. The Tavistock set out with expertise in this field and have not sufficiently monitored their patients, carried out enough rigorous research and then, were overwhelmed by demand when this treatment was seized upon by some of our social media generation as an answer to all their woes.

The aim is not to deny children with gender dysphoria good care or to demonise the trans community. It’s about shining a light on clinical decisions, ethics of consent and working out what best clinical practise should be. And that’s got to be done away from the heat of the special interest groups, lobbyists and anyone with an agenda that doesn’t centre the health and well-being of the child.

I see that Mermaids has swung into action and persuaded Sky News to change its coverage of this case by inserting a puff piece for Mermaids with a picture of a mother and young teenager who has never been happier since going on puberty blockers aged 12. Unfortunately, my hunch is that in 10 years time there will be a lot more young women like Keira than happy young trans men.

Judicial review is long overdue. I hope they win.

Go on then Britney...