Sandyford Clinic in Scotland closing doors to new patients

I would take this all as an admission that trans kids medically has a limited time frame, and is going to face increasing scrutiny, just as the case in England.

That doesn't mean it won't continue, but it is going to be harder for the NHS to justify....

It's great news because these children should have always been under CHAMS but instead they were sent to a "service" that literally refused to treat or even accept that they had any mh problems. Please read the SPATH (Scottish version of WPATH).
If you think what has been happening at the Tavistock is a scandal then I don't know what you will make of the Sandyford as its even worse! Stergeon has refused to acknowledge the cass review and pushed for more extreme practices driven by ideology rather than science.
Personally I want to see them all up on charges of crimes against humanity as all I see is a eugenics program of sterilising autistic children, homosexual children and mentally ill abuse survivors.
33%(1/3) of all gids patients have autism yet only 2% of the population dose. That statistic alone should tell you all that you need to know.
But yes CHAMS needs a complete overhaul and proper funding

@Hoardasurass Is SPATH a serious organisation, meaning one that is, or was, listened to by the Scottish NHS? Or by anyone else for that matter. Because their manifesto reads like a lunatic fringe.

It is also worth pointing out that the current work to develop standards appears to be working to a model of getting more children and adolescents onto the medical pathway faster.

There are no signs at the moment of a change of direction in Scotland.

@AmaryllisNightAndDay the policy is what the Scottish NHS is using. They had links to the eunuch archives on the NHS Scotland website and when people complained and their it team investigated they had to report themselves to the police due to the sheer volume of csa on the eunuch achieve

NHS Scotland have since said they do not work with WPATH, Hoardasaurus. And don't use the WPATH Standards of Care. It wwas in their statement about the Eunuch fiasco.

Thanks @Hoardasurass It's amazing what people who should know better will take seriously!

100% on point @ResisterRex

The EUNUCH ARCHIVE???

What utter fresh abhorrent hell is this?? Actually please don’t tell me; I couldn’t bear to know about it. Those two words suffice.

NHS Scotland's gender service posted WPATH's Standards of Care on their website. One of the 'standards of care' involves Eunuchs, as a gender. The report on it included links to the Eunuch Archive, which is effectively a huge repository of CSA fiction.

@FrancescaContini if you want to know redux did a really informative article on it but it's grim reading

@ArabellaScott that's correct they claim that they don't use it however evidence says otherwise

Sorry I didn't mean for that to be in bold it changed itself 😪

NHS Scotland is heavily influence by WPATH.

Here is the work currently underway to develop standards- WPATH Soc 8 is a main driver:

forwomen.scot/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/SPATH-Sub-group-update-and-recommendations-v0.1.pdf

Thanks for your concern @suggestionsplease1 but the sexual health services bit is staying open, as is the adult GIC.

It’s only the paediatric gender clinic that is closing.

Yes the clinic that has given puberty blockers to children as young as 9 years old by all accounts. Glad if it means this practice is stopped.

It is not closing! It is just the waiting list that has been shut and there is absolutely no indication that this is a permanent closure.

I completely agree that funnelling 17 year olds straight into adult service is worrying but at least going straight on cross sex hormones at 17 is less physically damaging than puberty blockers for 1 to 6 years followed by cross sex hormones.
Getting to 17 without physical intervention gives teens the option to store gametes too - not possible at 10/11.

Sorry! If Mumsnet had an edit button I would swap ‘closing’ for ‘pausing’!

Thanks for correction.

As a parent, you can say no to puberty blockers and Sandyford would be unwilling to put a child down that path without a supportive family. At 17, that is not taken into consideration and cross sex hormones are effectively given on demand without proper assessment. For parents in that situation, it is a more frightening prospect than saying no to Sandyford when the child is younger.

No thanks 😮

I do appreciate how awful it is that parents have so little say at 16plus.
It’s where we are with my DD now (albeit not in Scotland)
GenderGP will already give a year’s worth of hormones to any kid with unsupportive parents who GGP decides is Gillick Competent and Superdrug will reportedly sell Testogel to anyone 18 and up with an M marker on their passport after a questionnaire with the online pharmacist 😱

None of this is ok but it’s also not ok that kids with affirming parents going through Sandyford lose their fertility/sexual function either 😢

Gosh, a not terribly honest shocker.