New figures show that NHS Scotland has spent at least £2 million on so-called sex-change procedures over the last four years.
The Herald reports that 386 referrals for surgery were made between April 2013 and July this year.
There were 135 male to female genital surgeries – at an average cost to the taxpayer of £10-11,000 per patient – and 41 female to male genital surgeries. More than 200 people also underwent chest reconstructions, at an average cost of around £5,000.
Referrals
The figures were provided by National Services Division, which gained responsibility for all referrals in Scotland in 2012.
Currently, Scottish patients are sent to England as there are no specialist ‘gender surgeons’ in Scotland.
Dr Mike Evans, Director of the Nuffield Hospital in Brighton, told The Herald that his practice is training a third surgeon to meet “growing demand”.
Gender dysphoria
Earlier this year, new figures emerged from the Tavistock clinic’s Gender Identity Development Service, a London-based NHS clinic which works with children diagnosed with ‘gender identity disorder’.
Referrals to the clinic rose from 1,419 in 2015/16 to 2,016 in 2016/17 – a 42 per cent increase.
The figures also showed that referrals have been increasing at an alarming rate since 2009, when there were under 100.
BBC bias
At the time, a parental campaign group warned that the UK media is complicit in the normalisation of transsexualism.
Transgender Trend, a group of concerned parents who challenge pro-trans propaganda, said the media – and the BBC in particular – are responsible for introducing and normalising the idea that children can be ‘trapped in the wrong body’.
Experts have also hit out at the promotion of transsexualism in schools. Last month, author and lecturer Dr Joanna Williams criticised campaigners for seeking to change school policies on gender, and forcing children to “unlearn” the difference between boys and girls.
She said: “We are increasingly reminded that schools are struggling financially. Yet the time, effort and money that goes into producing and monitoring Transgender Policies is out of all proportion to the tiny number of trans children currently in British schools.”
