Campaigners Demand Government Action Over ‘Secrecy’ of Adult Gender Clinics

Retired consultant paediatrician Dr. Hilary Cass speaking about the publication of the Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People (The Cass Review) in west London, on April 9, 2024. Yui Mok/PA Wire

Three campaign groups have written to the government, calling for the damning report into children’s gender services to be followed by a thorough review of adult services and demanding those responsible for the failings identified in the Cass Review are held accountable.

The letter is addressed to health secretary Victoria Atkins and acknowledges the “seriousness” with which the government says it is taking the 32 separate recommendations made by Dr. Hilary Cass to improve gender services for the under-25s who claim to be experiencing gender dysphoria.

Shared on social media platform X, the letter was co-authored by Sex Matters, Transgender Trend, and the LGB Alliance, who all campaign for biological reality to be respected and recognised.

Sex Matters campaigns for the sex-based rights of women and girls to be upheld and was recently granted charitable status. Transgender Trend focuses on the serious harm being done to children through transgender ideology and LGB Alliance is a charity that represents the interests of gay and bisexual people.

“We would welcome assurance that those responsible for the failings identified in the Cass Review will be properly held to account,” the letter said, going on to highlight serious concerns over the revelation that six out of the seven UK adult gender clinics refused to co-operate with Dr. Cass, delaying the 400-page report and making it less comprehensive than it could have been.

The clinics which would not take part in the review are located in Nottingham, Northampton, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester and London. The NHS’s most senior adviser on transgender health, Dr. Derek Glidden, is also the director of the Nottingham clinic.

The only adult gender services clinic which agreed to supply the data to the York-based project was the Laurels Gender Identity Clinic in Exeter.

The campaigners said they were “gravely concerned” to learn that six NHS trusts refused to give the researchers access  patient records where they had been moved from children’s to adult gender services.

‘Disgraceful Dereliction of Duty’

The letter condemns the “disgraceful dereliction of duty” by the NHS clinics in withholding data which could have revealed more about the side-effects and risks of taking puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, as well as the impact of children being allowed to “socially transition.”

“The research they obstructed is needed by clinicians, policy-makers, the general public and, most importantly, future patients and their families, so they can understand the risks and the effectiveness of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.”

The campaigners welcome the “personal recognition” from Ms. Atkins of “the culture of secrecy and ideology in gender services” as well as the announcement of a systematic review of the operation and delivery of adult gender clinics.

They also welcomed a letter from the medical director of commissioning in the NHS to all chief executives of NHS trusts asking for their immediate action and full cooperation.

The review, which was four years in the making, laid bare the myriad of failings in the children’s Gender Identity Development Services (GIDS), although it has not gone far enough for many who believe the entire concept of transgenderism is ideologically driven.

The report highlights how many vulnerable children, including those with mental health problems, those on the autistic spectrum and those with traumatic family backgrounds have been placed on inappropriate paths toward life-altering surgery and sterility because of a culture of “affirming” people’s self-diagnosed “gender identity.”

The campaigners said in their letter that the NHS, “must do better on data collection, so that vulnerable patients no longer risk being harmed rather than helped by the professionals they turn to. We believe that close attention must be given to the historic reporting of any adverse outcomes as a result of care these services have provided, together with an investigation of the support provided to those who chose to detransition.” 

The groups call for a thorough assessment of the hugely controversial practices of performing mastectomies and hysterectomies on women and the castration and vaginoplasty surgery performed on men.

‘Abuse, Trauma, Autism, Self-Harm and Mental Health Issues’

“As Dr. Cass has highlighted, those presenting at the children’s service had high rates of mental-health challenges such as depression, anxiety, autism, suicidality, self-harm, and eating disorders. Sexual abuse and family trauma, homophobia, and difficulty accepting themselves as lesbian, gay, or bisexual were also highly prevalent. These factors should not be ignored when they appear in the adult cohorts,” the letter adds.

The campaigners stressed the “urgent need” to ensure that patients transferring from children to adult gender services, as well as other adults accessing these services, receive “holistic, well-evidenced care” because the general consensus is that the human brain is still developing until the age of 25.

“It makes no sense to draw a line at age 18, and treat everyone above that age as equally able to provide informed consent and equally unlikely to see their gender distress resolve naturally,” they wrote.

The letter condemned the “exceptionalisation” and “diagnostic overshadowing” the report found were allowed to prevail in GIDS, meaning that clinical practice for gender-questioning children fell short of minimum requirements.

“We believe questions need to be asked about why this happened and why a culture of disregarding the safeguarding of children was allowed to become the norm.”

In the wake of the report, the NHS announced a pause in referrals of under-18s to adult gender services and said that the government would look to ban the prescribing of puberty blockers by private providers, who are exempt from NHS guidelines which recently banned them for under 16s, except for participants in medical trials.

Writing in The Telegraph, Ms. Atkins said: “I am hugely grateful to Dr. Cass’s dedicated team for their detailed and considered work on such a contentious area of health care.

“I commend those brave voices who spoke up to raise the alarm about how treatment was diverging so far from guidance.”

“A culture of secrecy and ideology over evidence and safety. Today I’m saying ‘enough.’”

“We simply do not know the lifelong impact of these medical interventions on young minds and bodies to be clear that they are safe,” she wrote.