Gender Clinic struggling with rise in NB children

[Justme56]

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/gender-clinic-struggling-with-rise-in-non-binary-children-wlsqw9w05

‘They had encountered patients who shifted genders depending on how they felt on different days. We have got into a position where we are enabling people to deny reality,,,’

From the article:

'One health professional revealed that some young “non-binary” patients who say they do not belong to either gender still request sex hormones that would either feminise or masculinise them.

'The employee said: “We’re following a 2012 protocol that doesn’t talk at all about non-binary people, which is actually becoming a much bigger proportion of our cases.

'“And [there are] non-binary people asking for hormones, but of course hormones are only either feminising or masculinising. So how does that fit for a person who identifies as non-binary?”'

I wonder if clinics like the Sandyford are allowed to refuse referrals. If they don't have a protocol for dealing with people who claim to be non-binary, could they just say: we are not going to treat you? Surely they are not obliged to refer patients to endocrinology to receive hormones?

Archive version. archive.ph/JWsRm

If man doesn't mean male, and woman doesn't mean female, then it makes no sense for any trans people to try and emulate being male or female using sex hormones.

It's no less weird than for NB.

And they wonder why their waiting list is 5 years long?!?! Is there anyone with any critical thinking skills involved in gender medicine?

In Scotland in 1567 a gender nonconforming woman might have been forced to wear a scold's bridle.

In Scotland in 2025, LGBT Scotland recommends that gender non conformity requires a 'treatment pathway'.

Plus ca change.

Can't they just say NB is not commissioned and decline the referral?

Or do what is commissioned- some psychological assessment- while making it clear the NHS doesn't provide pick and mix hormones?

Or am I just bitter seeing how many of my referrals for seriously ill patients get binned as 'service is not commissioned'.

One would think that NB exists in the realm of fantasy. Maybe these young people need to live more in the physical world & get out of their head

This is why these services must go back to a framework of biology / reality and recognise that born a boy = you are a boy / born a girl = you are a girl, and then treat any incongruities in perception as the mental health issues they are... but as the framework would reference immutable biology, there would never be a need for hormones of any type...

at that point it doesn't matter if someone arrives thinking they are non-binary / transgirl / etc. - they are simply a boy with mental health issues - it becomes much more straight forward - it is only complicated because we allow for situations of deceit and ignoring reality - if you do that, it is hardly surprising that it is difficult to see any form of consistency, and you get run-ragged by the randomness of how children present.

The problem is that then they have to explain what they are doing... but genuine question - why haven't they had to do this already?

Even before the Cass report, why was treatment being given with no clear understanding of benefit? Why is it different to getting sign off on a new breast cancer drug?

Non-binary isn't a medical condition so what are they treating? If someone refers a patient to the service I work in and we don't cover that condition we just say no. Time the gender clinics were disbanded - if gender dysphoria isn't a mental health condition then they don't need NHS care.

I'm pleased to see the waiting time is 5 years - watchful waiting in action!

Being NB is surely just another term for a very human condition of feeling like you don't fit in, which was a something that has always been. A few years ago you were simply a misfit, a few decades ago you could become a punk.

It's a bit like ADHD, it's been around forever, we used to call such people flakey.

I don't know what 'treatment' there is for being gender non conforming other than finding a group of people that you do fit in with. I guess what makes it unbearable is anxiety/depression etc that goes with it. (Which is the cause and which is the symptom eh?)

I just don't think NB is a valid thing. I don't and I say that as someone who struggled with being female for a time. I think it's part and parcel of growing up.

Here is the treatment for people who say they are non-binary.

'Ok, cool. Thanks for the info'.

All these kids need to go outside, play some sports and stop doom scrolling!

Bloody internet innit

I'm not sure the comparison with ADHD is the best.
Apart from anything one is neurological and the other is mental illness.
I might not be understanding your point correctly though.

‘They had encountered patients who shifted genders depending on how they felt on different days. We have got into a position where we are enabling people to deny reality,,,’

(1) In what sense did these people "shift genders"?
(2) Have you got any evidence that the shift happened based on "how they felt?" or would it be more accurate to say "who said that they shifted genders depending on how they felt on different days [(but who for all we know genuinely believe that they are genderless at all times, or are just pretending to be "trans" for lols]".
(3) "We have got into..." No shit sherlock, let's end trans now.

What is the difference between "neurological" and "mental illness"?

What even is “shifting genders” realistically?

"We want drugs to self harm because we don't like the way our bodies look".

Back in my day it was razor blades marks to the arms.

Pips/philip Bunce?

The NHS can’t afford to pander to every overindulged middle class teenager who wants to be special. Aside from body “nullification” which I don’t see as something which should be supported what exactly are they taking hormones or having medical treatment for? Better mental health support would be more useful.

"A neurological condition is a disease or disorder that affects the nervous system, including the brain, spinal cord, and nerves, while a mental illness is a condition that affects a person's thinking, feeling, or behaviour"
ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition which affects some structures of the brain, for instance the lining of the brain is thinner than "normal" brains.

Surely what children presenting with issues around gender identities need is not medicalisation, it's the kind of anti-stereotyping message of the women's movement in the past: be yourself, make your own choices, follow your own inclinations, grow up to be the kind of man or the kind of woman you want to be, a pro-social human being, not the way some people say you have to be.

We seem to have gone backwards in what we teach children about what 'being a man' or 'being a woman' means, as if feminism had never happened,
which is probably 'mission accomplished' for the anti-women backlash.

There is nothing unusual, and nothing wrong, with children kicking against the constraints of gender stereotyping which they are still subjected to in 2025.

It's not a mental illness, it's not a medical problem, it's a social problem to be solved by backing off and letting children be children in the first place, not forcing them into having to be 'real boys' or 'girly girls', and defining a child as NB or worse still trans, if they find gender stereotypes restrictive.

The hormones make sense to the young person because they either want to masculinise or feminise to counterbalance their own natural hormones, in the hope that they’ll end up somewhere in the middle. But I don’t think hormone treatment works like that! I don’t think it can be finely dosed to get a person to a completely neutral point between feminine and masculine.

But yeah, it’s not appropriate to treat a social contagion/mental illness with hormones like this.

Turns out that telling kids that if they don’t conform to a very narrow set of stereotypes for their sex they are actually ‘non binary’ has consequences.

Is anyone ready for my surprised face?