A nine-year-old girl became one of the youngest children in the UK to be given hormone blockers to ‘pause’ puberty, it has been revealed.
After being allowed to dress as a boy since she was around five, the now ten-year-old girl, who calls herself ‘Jason’, started taking hormone blockers privately in April.
Research has shown that the vast majority of children who experience feelings of gender dysphoria grow out of it.
Cross-sex hormones
The child appeared on the Victoria Derbyshire programme last week with her mother, who praised a CBBC documentary about a transsexual teenager.
The girl’s father had previously called his daughter’s feelings ‘a phase’. But after she watched this programme, he and her mother ‘explained’ transsexualism to her and allowed her to ‘live as a boy’.
Her mother, Leanne, said she would continue taking hormone blockers until she was 13 or 14, and is able to make the decision of whether she wanted to begin taking irreversible cross-sex hormones, which would cause the girl to develop male characteristics.
‘Meant to be impartial’
The Christian Institute’s Simon Calvert strongly criticised the BBC.
He said: “Apparently the father of this child dismissed allowing his daughter to ‘live as a boy’ until his daughter watched a CBBC programme on transsexualism.
“This is proof that BBC children’s programming is being used to get parents to go along with the transgender movement. The BBC is meant to be impartial on controversial issues but all pretence of impartiality has gone out of the window.
“Telling people they can change their biological sex is just a fallacy. People who genuinely struggle with gender dysphoria need compassion and patient help to come to terms with reality. Instead, the BBC thinks we should try to change reality.”
Viewer complaints
In the past five years, 120 children under the age of 15 have been given hormone treatment by the NHS.
During the Victoria Derbyshire programme, viewers wrote in to complain, with one saying: “Pausing puberty? This is just kids wanting their own way. I was a tomboy growing up, and now I’m a girly girl.”
Another wrote: “The child can’t even vote, but we will do a sex change – this is wrong.”
Gender dysphoria
Dr Helen Webberley, who was also interviewed on the programme, runs a private gender identity clinic, which gives children under 16 cross-sex hormones – although this is below the recommended age given by the NHS.
When asked how she knew that offering and performing these treatments was right, she responded: “How does anyone know that anything is right?”
She added that in this case, the decision was informed by talking to the girl, her parents, teachers, family and friends.