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2 December 2020 by Jan Rivers
Will a milestone UK case on gender medicine for young people and children have impacts in NZ?
In the UK High Court a legal case against the Tavistock Clinic's Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) has been won by Keira Bell. Bell is a 23 year old woman who was treated with puberty blockers and testosterone followed by a mastectomy, and lived as a male for several years before she realised that "transition was a temporary fix, if that". The treatment, which started when she was 16, happened because she never received adequate counselling to address the root causes of her gender discomfort. As a young teenager who didn't conform to stereotyped gender expectations she felt "wrong".
The NHS had already changed its advice that puberty blockers are safe and fully reversible to wording that indicates that the long term impacts are unknown. The land mark ruling released on 1 December has seen the NHS immediately suspend the use of puberty blockers in new patients and it assesses puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones in children as experimental treatments that cannot be given to children in most cases without application to the court. This includes for children aged 16 and 17 where there may be any doubt about their long-term benefit. The judgment showed that Bell was not able to consent to treatment because she could not understand its long term impacts.
The judgment also showed that the Tavistock Clinic did not collect and analyse the data about patient prognosis following puberty blockers. While they are described as providing thinking time for gender confused children other research has shown that upwards of 95%, if not all children prescribed puberty blockers continue to further treatment including cross sex hormones. Many later choose surgery such as mastectomy, hysterectomy and even phalloplasty (the creation of an artificial penis in girls) with corresponding treatment pathways for boys. In contrast, an analysis of the available research shows that without medical treatment between 60% and 100% of gender confused children would, depending on the study, mature out of their earlier beliefs and come to a satisfactory accommodation with their bodies.
It is anticipated that the ramifications of this case will lead to a more cautious approach to gender medicine for children and young people across the world including in NZ where judgment is directly relevant – NZ's treatment regime is significantly more liberal and its delivery more devolved than in the UK. In contrast with the UK there is no diagnosis required by NZ's gender health medicine guidelines that cover children and young people. The NZ guidelines advise clinicians to follow the young persons self-assessment in a process called gender affirming healthcare which is defined as "healthcare that is respectful and affirming of a person's unique sense of gender and provides support to identify and facilitate gender healthcare goals." Unlike the UK New Zealand's Ministry of Health still maintains that puberty blockers are 'safe and fully reversible' despite a NZ campaign that is calling for the advice to be reviewed based on the evidence now available.
The judgment referenced Gillick Competence, a protocol that is used internationally and which was employed by GIDS to make the case that the children were fully informed about the treatment and therefore able to give consent. However the court found that the scale and permanence of changes to a young person's life, including the high likelihood that puberty blockers will lead to further treatment and irreversible changes such as loss of sexual function and fertility, meant that children and young people were unable to give informed consent.
Another factor that the court argued precluded informed consent is that puberty blockers are an experimental treatment with unknown long term health impacts. This was clarified in research by New Zealander Michael Biggs, Associate Professor of Sociology at Oxford University. He discovered that the GIDS clinic started the work as an experiment which had simply continued to become normal practice without ever reporting full results. He analysed unpublished data from GIDS clinic that demonstrated the negative mental health impacts of treatments offered by the Tavistock. Biggs' research was amongst the evidence presented at the trial.
Keira Bell was interviewed by Raquel Rosario Sánchez for the for Spanish feminist platform Tribuna Feminista
https://womansplaceuk.org/2020/11/30/keira-bell-there-was-nothing-wrong-with-my-body
RRS: Looking back now, how do you reflect on those years of your life?
KB: I look back with a lot of sadness. There was nothing wrong with my body, I was just lost and without proper support. Transition gave me the facility to hide from myself even more than before. It was a temporary fix, if that.
RRS: How can society address gender dysphoria in children and teenagers, without resorting to experimental, and oftentimes unnecessary, medical practices?
KB: It has to start with how we look at gender non-conformity, and non-conformity in general. Almost every girl (if not all) that wants to or has transitioned has felt like they are wrong because they do not conform to something that this society deems as important or necessary.
Gender nonconformity needs to be accepted. Role models are really important. Young lesbians or bisexual women, especially those of us who are black or brown, don't have many role models. We need better mental health support, and I think that speaks for most countries. Mental health support is a great preventative measure.
What does the Keira Bell case tell us? Suzanne Moore
https://suzannemoore.substack.com/p/what-does-the-keira-bell-case-tell
The former Guardian journalist Suzanne Moore writes 'we must ask what is causing this misery for girls and why suicide rates are rising. Why are female bodies such an uncomfortable place to be?"
"That question needs to be thrown back to society and not always located in the psyche of the individual. This is why I find parts of trans activist discourse so totally conservative. There is no analysis of how gender operates, of how bodies and definitions do not exist in isolation, how the notion of a true self may itself be false."
NHS gender clinic 'should have challenged me more' over transition
An interview with Keira Bell https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/health-51676020
By Alison Holt Social Affairs Correspondent, BBC News 01 March 2020
Puberty blockers: Under-16s 'unlikely to be able to give informed consent'
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-55144148
Keira Bell: The High Court hands down a historic judgment to protect vulnerable children: Transgender Trend
https://www.transgendertrend.com/keira-bell-high-court-historic-judgment-protect-vulnerable-children/
The judgment concluded that it is highly unlikely that a child aged 13 or under would ever be Gillick competent to give consent to being treated with puberty blockers and very doubtful that children aged 14 and 15 could understand the long-term risks and consequences of treatment in such a way as to have sufficient understanding to give consent.
The court also ruled that it would be appropriate for clinicians to involve the court in any case where there may be any doubt as to whether the long-term interests of a 16 or 17 year-old would be served by the clinical interventions of blockers and hormones.
The judgment today is a watershed moment. As a society we must ask ourselves how we allowed this to happen. The threats, bullying and the silencing of alternative views must stop here.
Today the right judgment has been handed down in the High Court. But we should never have had to learn about the dangers of institutional capture in this way.
The slow motion scandal: Graham Linehan
https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/the-slow-motion-scandal
Graham Linehan quotes from a thread by the Evidence-Based Social Work Association twitter thread following the announcement of the decision.
"We were told that the defendant did not have any data recording the proportion of those on puberty blockers who progress to cross-sex hormones"
IN other words, Tavistock did not collate data on one of their key medical interventions!
And finally part of the conclusion.
"A child under 16 may only consent to the use of medication intended to suppress puberty where he or she is competent to understand the nature of the treatment. That includes an understanding of the immediate and long-term consequences of the treatment, the limited evidence available as to its efficacy or purpose, the fact that the vast majority of patients proceed to the use of cross-sex hormones, and its potential life-changing consequences for a child.
ttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/01/children-who-want-puberty-blockers-must-understand-effects-high-court-rules
The Guardian article outlines the critera that lead to a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and 5 of the 8 are clearly linked to gender stereotypes.
Gender dysphoria involves children demonstrating at least six of a series of behavioural traits as well as an "associated significant distress or impairment in function, lasting at least six months"
• A strong desire to be of the other gender or an insistence that one is the other gender.
• A strong preference for wearing clothes typical of the other gender.
• A strong preference for cross-gender roles in make-believe play or fantasy play.
• A strong preference for toys, games or activities stereotypically used or engaged in by the other gender.
• A strong preference for playmates of the other gender.
• A strong rejection of toys, games and activities typical of one's assigned gender.
• A strong dislike of one's sexual anatomy.
• A strong desire for the physical sex characteristics that match one's experienced gender.
Guidelines for gender affirming healthcare for gender diverse and transgender children, young people and adults in Aotearoa New Zealand
https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/handle/10289/12160
Supporting trans and gender diverse children requires a developmentally appropriate and gender affirming approach which involves assisting children to create an environment where their gender can be affirmed.
Gender Affirmative Healthcare definition: "healthcare that is respectful and affirming of a person's unique sense of gender and provides support to identify and facilitate gender healthcare goals."
The full court judgment
https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/r-on-the-application-of-quincy-bell-and-a-v-tavistock-and-portman-nhs-trust-and-others/
The judgement runs to 38 pages. Amongst the material supplied by GIDs was testimony from their successful patients. J is one.J is a 20 year old transgender man who received PBs in 2012 at the age of 12 followed by CSH in 2015. He described how he felt a strong need to become a boy from an early age and how he was bullied at school for his behaviour.He found the onset of female puberty horrifying and unbearable. After a number of sessions at GIDS he was prescribed PBs from the age of 12. According to J he was given the fullest possible information from the clinicians at GIDS as to the benefits and disbenefits of the treatment. The clinicians strongly challenged his desire to transition and why he had chosen to express his gender identity as male. He was advised as to the impact on fertility if he chose to go on to CSH and surgery. He said: "I made the decision to proceed with pubertal suppression without pursuing egg preservation. It was a difficult decision to make because I did not know whether I would want biological children in adulthood, but I was certain I would never want to carry a child and give birth. Ultimately, I made the decision because I had a poor quality of life and without immediate treatment I did not feel I had a future at all." He says: "We discussed sex and I told them the idea of it disgusted me. I knew I would be unable to consider having a sexual relationship as an adult with my body so wrongly formed." (emphasis added)
Comment: A case study presented as a success story by GIDS is a 12 year old girl, bullied in all probability because of her atypical in interests and preferences. She is barely through a puberty which she found disturbing. She feels highly judgmental of and negative about her body. She cannot bear the prospect of sex, or the thought of pregnancy and childbirth. Has childhood changed so much that clinicians would see such a presentation as markedly different to the average 12 year old girl – except for J's belief the solution to all this lay in becoming a boy?
Jan Rivers
Independent researcher and co-author of Another unfortunate experiment? New Zealand's transgender health policy and its impact on children.
Filed Under: Democracy, Slider
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