Observer articles on fast tracking at the Tavistock clinic

[nellodee]

I haven't seen these linked on here yet:

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/03/real-life-butterfly-families-transgender-child-tavistock-clinic

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/03/tavistock-centre-gender-identity-clinic-accused-fast-tracking-young-adults

I'm not sure that clear difference will prevent Susie Green et al using this to push for speedier treatments on the NHS.

Some Mermaids parents and TRAs have been pushing for referral to private gender clinics due the waiting times.

They are citing the NHS protocols which allow for patients to have some medical treatments at private hospitals when wait time is outside a designated period.

THere has also been increasing pressure to implement policies which may provide altenative pathways. The focus seems to be on the waiting time to see GIDs (also highlighted is the travel time & cost)

This was evident in a recent World at One segment with both Dr Polly Carmichael and a very concerned parent (who I think may be involved with Mermaids)

threads:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3229756-Transgender-child-on-R4-World-at-One

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3228409-DM-Article-NHS-sex-change-drugs-are-putting-hundreds-of-children-at-risk-each-year-warns-top-doctor?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3268237-Westminster-Social-Policy-forum-today-Next-steps-for-transgender-Equality-WSPFEvents?pg=2

When the service was founded in the 1990's the children they were seeing were probably 90% male and with gender dysphoria of the intractable kind (appearing at around aged 4, and enduring through puberty).

Now there will be a large number of female patients who showed no sign of gender dysphoria before their teenage years, and whose parents were dumbfounded at their sudden announcement.

I think it is appallingly arrogant to assume that nothing in the clinic's approach needs to change, or be re-thought in the light of a new kind of presentation of gender dysphoria.

I found the last para of the piece "Castaways corner" shocking.

But what about outcome? What has happened to children and teenagers, some of whom have attended our service for years? What kind of life do they have? What memories do they have of their contact with our service? We know little about this, except in an anecdotal way. It is now time that we start to find out.

This was in 2002, 13 years after he started the GID clinic.

Did any of these lifechanging medical interventions on children work? who knows?