Trans boy takes NHS to court over delays to gender identity treatment

[stumbledin]

A transgender boy is taking NHS England to court over delays in accessing gender identity treatment.

The 14-year-old, who was referred to the UK’s only youth gender identity clinic in October 2019, has been told he may have to wait at least another year to be seen.

He said he was experiencing “fear and terror” while he waits for treatment.

Young people are currently facing “extensive waits” to see a therapist, with the average delay being 18 months or more, according to the Good Law Project, which is representing the boy.

The not-for-profit organisation said the health service was legally required to ensure patients referred to gender identity development services (GIDS) are seen within 18 weeks.

“Children are losing the opportunity to be seen within a window in which they can secure effective treatment and so are, in practice, being denied access to that treatment.”

News article in the Independent www.independent.co.uk/news/health/transgender-nhs-treatement-delay-b1760357.html

I'm confused I thought that under 18s (or is it 16) aren't eligible for treatment. Maybe I am misreading it, as I take "treatment" to mean drugs or even surgery. Or do they just mean support and advice?

And where were they all 30/40 years ago.

Far more schools back then who wouldn't let girls wear trousers to school. Both my schools didn't.

I went to primary in the age of pe knickers and pe in your underwear if you forgot your kit. We had communal showers at secondary and far more stereotypical sporting options.

There was far more reason to be uncomfortable about your body back then at school anyway. You had the stereotypes rammed down your neck.

Its very obvious what rhe difference is between then and now...

The refusal to acknowledge the part SM and Internet porn play is worrying

to be honest this narrative that trans children like trans adults are the most oppressed is so offensive.

My 14 year old boy with autism, has no right to a school education because there are no schools that can meet his needs, he has no right to mental health care because the pathway in our area doesn't include people with an autism diagnosis (unbelivable but true).

No one is crowdfunding to help the many many children with disabilities in this country whose futures are limited by lack of services and waiting list.

It's all me me me and that applies to the lawyer as much as the child.

@CorianderLord

Exactly this!

The BBC covered this story yesterday and there was uproar on twitter that they had spoken to the 'transphobic hate group' LGB Alliance. It was uncharacteristic of the BBC to include an opposing view in such an article

'We have ordered you not to talk to that group and prescribed how you are to name and view them, and you disobeyed us' in other words. There is a belief in being the absolute authority, and of commanded obedience to orders, hence the rage when the control is in any way challenged.

The BBC appear to be finally realising that just accepting the authority of a political lobby without at least appearing to be questioning matters a little further is ethically unjustifiable considering their brief and funding. And may leave them flapping in the wind as court cases and wider information comes to light.

This thing of self diagnosis via the internet is a real problem. My daughter was in CAMHS, and had two close friends who were also. I think one of the things that's so difficult for them, even when they do eventually manage to access the system, is that there is not necessarily a neat diagnosis and a handy pill to take that will sort out your problems when it is mental health that is the issue.

For my DD, it took 4 years, with ever increasing medication, before she got a correct diagnosis, and the correct medication even after that still took another year. So that's 5 years of basically feeling shit, and looking for ways not to. Her friends self-diagnosed, and in one case in particular, came up with ever more extreme things she thought she was suffering from. DD was talking to me about this, and she said her advice was basically to stay off Tumblr, because it was a dark, dark place.

So I can see why people are so desperate, particularly when they're told this thing, this one golden, shining thing, will be the turning point. It will be the start of their recovery; the start of beginning to have a life. I'm sure that in some cases it will be the thing. They will have gender dysphoria. But a lot of others won't: mental health issues are not necessarily easy to diagnose.

And that is always supposing that you class these particular issues as mental health ones anyway.

Quote: "In the last few years we’ve seen attempts to throw out school guidance aimed at preventing increasing LGBT+ hate crime, an employment tribunal case brought by a provocateur woman arguing for her right to misgender freedom of speech and belief, a legal challenge to stop trans male women being able to run for office in all-women female-only shortlists, and another to close the door to treatment hormonal and surgical gay conversion therapy that is commonplace around the world."

Fixed that for them.

Let us not forget that court cases can only uphold the law.

This is so so sad that a 14yo feels this way over an appointment.

The sad thing is, healthcare is stacked against women - including this biologically female person - and waiting a long time to be seen about body issues is something they'll have to get used to

The whole thing would be more believable if the Good Law Project was mounting a case about anyone having to wait months, even years, to access treatment.

By focusing on this one issue (at a time treatment is being reassessed) it pur exploitation of a young person, to forward the agenda of a few leech like adults.

But also an indication that the trans agenda, having thought it was goint to be the flow of current thought, has now find that when matched against women's rights in court doesn't always win.

This is nothing to do with care for the child, but having an emotional puppet to display in public.

He said he was experiencing “fear and terror” while he waits for treatment.

Anyone else find this statement odd?

Distress I can understand, but distress is not what is being claimed.

So terror of what exactly? And who hyped up those feelings to this excessive extent?

So is it terror that there may be distress? Who is it that is constantly driving the message that going through puberty is so distressing? Seems to me that if one is feeling terror over distress one MIGHT experience, then there is a truly unhealthy amount of rumination occurring.

This is very much, in my opinion, an iatrogenic problem.

Well quite any

I mean when schools are administering their anti bullying stuff and talking abkut the false suicide stats, just what did they think would happen. Of course anyone who's now under the umbrella immediately thinks they are going to hurt or kill themselves. Its irresponsible.

As I said befire its sheer cruelty ro facilitate all this knowing full well there's no where to go with it. Because if schools can't tell the parents, and the kid spends all their time either at school or on the Internet googling it all, then they are incredibly isolated, probably petrified of their parents now and this is the end result. School gets its certificate , but the kid is high and dry...

@cantdothisnow1 Your post about the lack of provision for your son is shocking

So terror of what exactly? And who hyped up those feelings to this excessive extent?

Indeed. To me this sounds like a distressed child in need of mental health support - like so many other teenagers. The fact that the child is being encouraged by adults who should know better to believe that they are the wrong sex, and that only medical intervention can put that right, is nothing better than child abuse.