Judgement in High Court Family Division yesterday

[BettyBooper]

I'm not sure if this has been posted elsewhere...

A young person was prescribed testosterone by Gender GP without various important checks being carried out. The young person's father is attempting to prevent further treatment.

I haven't read the whole judgement yet, but it includes a lot of 'assigned at birth's and a eyebrow raising definition of gender dysphoria in young people. The young person is so clearly very vulnerable and Gender GP is outrageous.

I'm not adding a link because all parties are anonymous, but I'm sure anyone interested will be able to find it.

Very interesting judgment

Therapists from GIDS couldn't prescribe the hormone treatment themselves so they referred children to NHS endocrinologists who could prescribe them, but in order to do so they had to accept the recommendation/diagnosis from GIDS.

Yes that was my understanding. Is this how it works in other jurisdictions eg Australia or USA?

I can think of a couple of US endocrinologists/paediatricic endocrinologists who have spoken out about all this but for the most part their governing bodies are captured.

Yet I still wonder, going back to the early days, how this was allowed to take off - psychologists trotting up to endocrinologists and asking them to prescribe hormones to children to block their puberty or "change sex". Why was that never met with a "well you can't (change sex) and puberty is part of normal development so that's a NO".

It's easy to see how psychiatry/psychology took this path. But qualified specialist doctors? Why did they fall for it? As prescribers they should have been responsible for monitoring and follow up but presumably this never happened (as it never happened at GIDS). I find it extraordinary that they cheerfully prescribed drugs that they knew had very serious side effects and which were off label to children at the behest of a few psychiatrists and washed their hands of responsibility.

I've never understood this part of the story.
They could easily have dismissed the psychiatrists as a bunch of mad weirdos and had nothing to do with it. Couldn't they?

Good man. No doubt some dim Labour MP will pop up on TwitterX soon with a "Protect Trans Kids" mantra in response.

Good man. No doubt some dim Labour MP will pop up on TwitterX soon with a "Protect Trans Kids" mantra in response.

Yes, that does seem likely.

In terms of 'why did doctors fall for it' I listened to a podcast of the medical expert in the Lucy Letby case being interviewed by Raj Persaud.

The most interesting bit is near the end where he suggests doctors are trained to be conformist, follow guidelines and fit in on committees. It did ring very true and explained a lot.