In my opinion, the W's have been a much needed source of support for adult trans people over the last few years. I can't really speak for children other than to say, I'm very confident a tiny minority have GD and believe the tiny minority that do should have access to appropriate treatment provided in a peadiatric sphere with appropriate support and full engagement of the parents. To not offer that tiny minority help or treatment would not be a neutral act.
As for adults, the W's have stepped in to provide a service where the NHS was failing miserably and as far as I understand, the vast majority of adults under their care are happy with their treatment. The GMC has likely recognised that and realises that to take that away would leave a group of patients at the mercy of an unregulated supplier. To leave those who have started treatment without it for a few years until the NHS can get its act into order would again not be a neutral act.
I also think to infer that they are villains rushing vulnerable adults into unregulated care with untested medicines would be quite wide of the mark and stems from an attitude that positions being trans as always the undesirable outcome. They follow well established pathways common to other developed countries.
Even a number of post operative patients will use them after discharge from the GIC/surgical teams because many Gp's just don't seem to have a clue or want to be involved in what is essentially a very basic treatment regime. Some trans patients will often find that the only way to be treated like a human being in the medical system is to seek help from people who deal with the issue day in day out and that help is often in the private sector. There are GPs out there who will claim one minute to know nothing so they can't help but a week later be so expert on the condition that they decline to act as requested by a consultant involved in the specialist care. A bit odd really.
The other thing is, the large majority of the adults presenting for care will often have agonised over it for years, in many cases since they were children. Trying to make it go away is a common theme in a mildly socially conservative society like the UK. Despite assertions, being trans isn't the fashionable option, it will likely mean loss of family, loss of many friends and being the subject of bullying from people who should know better. That's not to say I don't think other demographics suffer the same fate, they do and it's always wrong. For these people to then present and find out they are stuck on a 3 year waiting list to see a GIC is hard. They will likely wait another year to 18 months on top of that to commence any treatment and by the time they see a surgeon most being referred today if they haven't got thousands of pounds to throw at it will probably be looking at a timescale of 6-7 years. Again, I'm not going to say there aren't other agonizingly slow areas of medical treatment but, it's always wrong.
In my opinion, what the W's stepping in to did was help to shine a huge light onto what a mess NHS gender services were in. I don't think either the NHS or the GIC's were over the moon about this and even less so when politicians started asking questions about it back in 2016. The sad thing is what could have been used to progress and improve access to trans healthcare got bogged down in discussions and consultations about GRA reform, something which in my opinion wasn't ever very high on the list of priorities for most of those suffering from the symptoms of GD.