“Serious questions” need to be asked about the medical pathway which leads gender-confused kids to sterilisation, a columnist has warned.
Writing for The Times, Janice Turner cautioned against prescribing puberty blockers to children that prevent them from naturally coming to terms with their biological sex.
Turner said that instead of putting them ‘on pause’, many children already start living as if they were the opposite sex and almost all go on to take sterilising cross-sex hormones.
‘Experimental’
The columnist said: “Can any 11-year-old understand the gravity of ruling out ever having children?”
She refuted claims that puberty blockers are “fully reversible”, saying the national Gender Identity Development Service admits the drugs’ effect on the “fast-developing teenage brain” is unknown.
Turner welcomed the NHS’ current review into the controversial treatment, saying “such experimental paediatric medicine has been politicised and shrouded in secrecy for too long”.
Harm
It comes amid growing pressure on the Scottish Government to abandon its plans to allow people to legally change sex simply by self-declaring their gender.
The proposals were expected to be implemented before the 2021 Holyrood election, but may now be delayed due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Meanwhile, the Westminster Government Equalities Office issued a statement, saying: “We are committed to maintaining the safeguards that protect vulnerable women and allow organisations to provide single-sex services. Concerns about predatory men seeking to find ways to harm women are legitimate.”
Also see:
Ex-trans: ‘I had tunnel vision that transitioning would make me happy’
Ex-trans: ‘NHS should have challenged me over belief I was a boy’
Gender clinic slammed over ‘experimental’ use of trans drugs