NHS Transgender Treatment of Children ‘Bordering on Ideological’: UK Health Secretary

Britain's Health Secretary Sajid Javid arrives for a cabinet meeting at Number 10 Downing Street in London on Jan. 25, 2022. Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images

British Health Secretary Sajid Javid said on Tuesday that the way the nation’s healthcare system currently handles cases of children with gender dysphoria is “bordering on ideological.”

Responding to a question, Javid told MPs that he shared concerns about the NHS insisting on children’s perception of their own gender as a starting point for treatment, describing the approach as “overly affirmative.”

The NHS has commissioned a review into its own gender identity services, the Cass Review, with an interim report published last month.

James Sunderland MP raised the findings of that interim report with Javid.

“The Cass Review interim report found that to date there is a profound lack of evidence on the best approach to treat gender dysphoria in children,” Sunderland told the Commons. “Does my right honorable Friend share my concern that in spite of this the NHS insists on making a child’s expressed gender identity the start-point for treatment, and my surprise that the NHS has chosen so far not to track patient outcomes, particularly for under-18s?”

Javid said that he shared Sunderland’s concerns, and noted that is why the Cass Review had been commissioned. He said, “It is already clear to me from her interim findings and the other evidence I have seen that NHS services in this area are too narrow; they are overly affirmative and in fact are bordering on ideological. That is why in this emerging area, of course, we need to be absolutely sensitive, but we also need to make sure that holistic care is provided, that there is not a one-way street and that all medical interventions are based on the best clinical evidence.”

Currently, the only provider is the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, which has been subject to growing public concern and controversy in recent years.

GIDS has experienced a rapid increase in referrals in recent years with long waiting lists.

The interim Cass Report found that waiting list pressure and lack of consensus resulted in a rapid staff turnover and inadequate capacity to handle cases.

“Our initial work has indicated that many professionals working at primary and secondary level feel that they have the transferable skills and the commitment to offer more robust support to this group of children and young people, but are nervous about doing so, partly because of the lack of formal clinical guidance, and partly due to the broader societal context.”

The report also noted, “Primary and secondary care staff have told us that they feel under pressure to adopt an unquestioning affirmative approach and that this is at odds with the standard process of clinical assessment and diagnosis that they have been trained to undertake in all other clinical encounters.”

The government cited the Cass Report when justifying its recent decision not to include transgenderism in a proposed ban on so-called conversion therapy. That decision was criticised by many trans rights activists, by the opposition Labour party, and also by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust that oversees the children’s gender identity service.