Children as you g as seven to be offered NHS transgender treatment

[Inamuddle36]

“Children as young as seven will get transgender treatment on the NHS, according to plans seen by The Telegraph.
In details of the new service to replace the controversial Tavistock clinic, NHS England has set out how it will limit the use of puberty blockers and ban activists and teachers from referring children for treatment.
For the first time, it has set a minimum age of seven for referral to the gender identity clinics.
These children will be offered psychological support and therapy that will focus on issues that may have led to their feelings about their gender.
However, experts have warned that the age restriction could still put young children with mental health problems on a “pathway to medical transition”.
Campaigners welcomed the “move toward an evidence-based approach”, but said there was still work to be done to ensure children are kept safe.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/04/children-aged-seven-nhs-transgender-treatment/

Quite a misleading title to your thread!

How about 'Under sevens no longer eligible for referral to gender specialists'?

This is the first sentence of the article.

Children as young as seven will get transgender treatment on the NHS, according to plans seen by The Telegraph.

It's the Telegraph being misleading, not the OP.

Yes of course, but last time I looked an OP can choose not to just retype a misleading headline.

If the treatment being offered to 7 year olds is really limited to psychological exploration of what put such ideas in their heads (sexist ideas of what is the "correct" way to feel/act/live if yoi are a "real" boy/girl) then that's great news. The more important question is what's the minimum duration of such talking therapy before any kind of medication is considered.

The title is only misleading if you assume transgender treatment to only mean hormones and surgery.
I think the idea it isn't only that is what the headline is trying to point out

I think the DT is attention-catching intentionally. Lots of the comments under the article are 'outrageous', 'needs to be stopped!', with no acknowledgement that this is a minimum age for intervention. The article gives the figures for how many three year old have become GIDS' patients.

An improvement. Not perfect, but better.

This is a good start. If PB are indeed going to be very limited in use that will be something to work on. Obviously what that also means is that the NHS will be watched very carefully to make sure that research and constant review will be done and updated on the effects of these drugs. As should have been happening for the past decade.

I also hope that very clear lists of accurate side effects including the ramification on adulthood of those side effects are discussed very bluntly and extensively with children and parents. Including that they really are not ‘reversible’ after a certain point. Rather than as we have seen previously.

I suspect that many Telegraph readers have been unaware that the NHS has ever "treated" children as young as 3 who think they're the opposite sex. We're used to this grim behaviour so 7 seems to be an "improvement". The reality is that no young children should have these delusions reinforced but should always have their mental health problems fully diagnosed and treated. Medics keen to assist children with their impossible "sex change" should be kept well away from them.

https://www.genderclinicnews.com/p/yes-our-evidence-is-weak

This latest news from Bernard Lane about the founder of the Queensland gender clinic is also positive.

“Dr. Stathis argued that if youth gender medicine were to be criticised as “experimental”, that label should also be applied to most treatments used by child and adolescent psychiatry because low-quality evidence was the norm.”

“He said Australia had failed to build a national network for gender medicine research and hinted at an imminent proposal for multi-clinic experimental trials, but the idea appeared to be that these trials would run in tandem with continued routine use of hormonal gender change for minors.”

Keira Bell did the world a huge service in exposing the ideological way the world’s gender clinics were being run. It has taken years to roll through but at least, and it is really slow, now studies are being instigated. That too will take years, of course. But if enough countries heavily restrict puberty blockers and cross sex hormones for under 18 years and increase exploratory therapy (as the Dutch protocol actually advocated for) there is hope.

It will also help if we get some guidance on preventing ‘social transitioning’ being done by schools.

It feels like it is so very slow progress. But between Keira Bell and Dr Cass (and all the hard work of so many people) it is moving in the right way.

I know that NY times made an announcement that studies into PBs are happening there now too. I will see if I can find the link

It's not the kids that need help. It's their sexist parents that need reading the riot act.

Yep at that age sexist and homophobic parents who can't countenance having a child who is at all different.... Or who want to capitalise on the difference for attention and woke points.

I can't see how children can currently get appropriate psychological treatment while BACP is so captured?

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/03/health/aap-gender-affirming-care-evidence-review.html

A link to cut and paste into archive if you need to. I believe it is archived.

I just clicked on read full article and could access it.

Medical Group Backs Youth Gender Treatments, but Calls for Research Review

The American Academy of Pediatrics renewed its support of gender care for minors while commissioning a fresh look at the evidence

By Azeen Ghorayshi Aug. 3, 2023

The American Academy of Pediatrics backed gender-related treatments for children on Thursday, reaffirming its position from 2018 on a medical approach that has since been banned in 19 states

But the influential group of doctors also took an extra step of commissioning a systematic review of medical research on the treatments, following similar efforts in Europe that found uncertain evidence for their effectiveness in adolescents.

That's a great article. Thanks for posting OP.
I actually really like the headline and the way it flows after that. It forces people to stop and think about the harms currently being done to children - it's such a shocking headline (I think most people would find it mad that a child of 7 can be treated for gender issues) that it may grab the attention of those who haven't had any interest in the subject before. Once they realise that this is actually an improvement on the current situation of an average of 3 referrals a month for under 7s, this will be quiet an eye opener. Also it makes it clear that the therapy will be more holistic and not gender-focused.

What is interesting in the first article I linked was that Dr Stathis also confirmed that adolescents with trans identities in his clinic in Queensland were not dying by suicide as per the claims of some support groups. That, yes they do have suicide ideation, just as many others with their comorbidities etc but they are not dying by suicide.

It sounds like that Cairns Pscyh conference asked him many of the relevant questions.

My final post on the Australian conference, maybe this is why some great questions were asked. I had not known about Dr Jillian Spencer, but she has been suspended from clinic duties because of raising questions.

Will this be the US equivalent of the Cass Report?

Let's hope the review is carried out thoroughly and fairly, looks for solid evidence and considers a holistic approach to the wellbeing of children.

The headline isn't misleading, the idea that children who still believe in Father Christmas but can't get tattoos BUT DO HAVE "a sufficient intellectual understanding of sex and gender" is":

"The plans state: “Children under seven years of age may not be expected to have sufficiently developed their intellectual understanding of, and comprehension of, sex and gender to be able to understand the reasons for, and potential consequences of, a referral to a specialist gender incongruence service.”

By seven, children will “be more established within school, and education professionals and school nurses will be able to contribute to a general observational view as to the appropriateness of a referral”."

Mad, bad, dangerous

Mad, bad & dangerous sums this up perfectly.

A school nurse who knows children sufficiently well to contribute a view on whether a referral to a 'specialist gender incongruence service' seems unlikely - neither of my DC have ever seen the school nurse. Also what about the parents views in relation to this? Any mention they will be sought?

I am not sure this is a good thing. I wonder if it will push a certain type of parent to use private clinics.

There's an article in the Times as well. I agree with what David Bell says 'it's all about the label.

Dr David Bell, a consultant psychiatrist and former governor at the Tavistock who later became a whistleblower about the clinic’s work, said: “For me there is a structural problem which needs particular caution: referring a child to a gender service, even if they are seen in the context of a multidisciplinary team, in that the mere fact of referral is consequential.

“It risks the child’s difficulties being viewed by themselves and their family as primarily to do with gender. Labelling the problem as a ‘gender problem’ can easily be the first step on a pathway to medical transition.”

If the child has other issues that need exploring why should gender identity be the main focus? Also, would it be better to take the focus off entirely by having the child simply seek counselling outside of a dedicated service/ Going to a dedicated clinic (if I have understood this correctly) could still send the message that this is about gender, thus holding that door open (as the main door).

I would hope so… but I am not sure of the specifics. I wonder if it will be entirely independent. Can any study these day about this topic be independent and not biased.

This is a good thread regards that.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4864905-reddit-thread-by-a-psychiatrist-about-youth-gender-medicine-studies

It is a gender Psych who is questioning the small increments being declared conclusive in a latest paper that supports child and adolescent treatment. It is a very interesting discussion on how weak the evidence really is.

This makes sense. I've been trying to think how a gender clinic can possibly work with a 7 year old.
If it's seen as self expression rather than distress pattern then come back when you're older.
If there are other factors, then they need gently exploring separate to gender.
If the parents are pushing it then that needs to be explored with them separately to the child and whether this happens is going to depend on the culture of the clinic or beliefs of the clinician.

There are probably more scenarios but none of the three above are best addressed elsewhere surely. The last of those is going to be the most complicated to unpick.