‘GPs must stop destroying the health of gender-confused children’

Doctors must resist the pressure to give “damaging” trans drugs to gender-confused young people, a GP has warned.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, the anonymous medic explained that they refused to give an NHS prescription to a twelve-year-old girl who had been on testosterone for a year from a private gender clinic. The doctor later discovered that another GP had “felt conflicted” but approved the request rather than argue with the “specialists”.

Although puberty blockers are indefinitely banned for new referrals in the UK, cross-sex hormones remain available to under-18s through the NHS and private providers.

‘Lifelong harm’

The doctor said: “I often think of that 12-year-old who will now have been on testosterone for more than two years”.

They continued: “It affects the vocal cords and their voices will never recover. Hair growth – as well as, alternately, hair loss on the head – is often irreversible. Young girls taking it now may find they are unable to have children, a loss they will not feel until they are much older.”

Recognising that there is “still pressure on doctors to prescribe these drugs”, they said: “I’m utterly ashamed so many are complicit in the destruction of the health of young people. I have stopped any involvement in referrals because I know my patients won’t get the exploratory care they need.”

The GP concluded: “As doctors we are used to saying no to people. For instance, we refuse antibiotics when the infection is viral, because the treatment causes more harm than benefit. Now it’s time for us to resist pressure from patients and lobbyists and say a firm no to the drugs that we know will harm these young people – possibly for the rest of their lives.”

Tavistock

Earlier this month it was revealed that Tavistock’s replacement services have not been giving gender-confused children new prescriptions for sex-swap drugs.

Camilla Kingdon, who will chair a new multi-disciplinary team of experts for decision making in cases of hormone prescriptions, said its role in the meantime is to ensure clinicians have been providing a “holistic assessment” of patients.

In contrast, 20 per cent of young people who attended the Tavistock’s Gender Identity Development Service between April 2018 and December 2022 were prescribed cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers, or both.