I'm sure we should be OK with sharing Susan Evans' test case story without sharing any links, as it's newsworthy.
I was a Senior Clinical Lecturer at the Tavistock and Portman NHSFT and Senior Fellow in Education, University of East London.
While working there I quickly became concerned about the treatment approach. When I joined the team I had expected that the young people would be assessed in depth and given support and psychological treatment over several years.
The alarm bells began ringing for me when a colleague at the weekly team clinical meeting said that they had seen a young person 4 times and they were now recommending them for a referral to the endocrinology department to commence hormone therapy.
It became apparent that there was tremendous pressure on the GIDS staff coming from several directions - the distressed patients, sometimes the families, but most worryingly from the ‘support’ groups and charities, who seemed to be having undue influence on the treatment approach within the GIDS.
Senior staff from GIDS have also been on the ‘teams’ at certain charities such as Mermaids and Gendered Intelligence.
I tried to raise my concerns as I questioned the rapidity of the referrals of the young people to the Endocrine clinic.
I also clinically disagreed with the request to fall into line in immediately ‘affirming’ the children's beliefs and also the expectation to write to other professionals using the name and sex the child had chosen rather than the patient who had been referred.
And the mother alongside Susan in the test case:
I am the mother of a 15 year old daughter, who is going through a time of gender confusion. She has autism and other mental health issues and I am trying to help her through this distressing experience. With a lack of specialist expertise within our regional Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, I have agreed for her to join the GIDS waiting list, but with significant reservations.
I have deep concerns that the current clinical approach at GIDS means that my daughter will be subjected to an experimental treatment path that is not adequately regulated, where there are insufficient safeguards, where her autism will not be properly accounted for and where no-one (let alone my daughter) understands the risks and therefore cannot ensure informed consent is obtained.
We should be providing thoughtful, expert, longer term psychological help and therapy, which research has shown to be helpful for many of these children.
It doesn't have to be a big spade - even if you were using a little trowel to purchase a coffee tomorrow when you're out and about, perhaps you could consider 'buying a coffee' for these brave women instead, standing up against other organisations who have a lot more financial clout behind them than they do.