Doctors refuse gender dysphoria treatment because of “deeply held Christian beliefs”

Writing in the British Medical Journal, James Barrett, consultant psychiatrist and president of the British Association of Gender Identity Specialists, claimed one in five doctors are reluctant to treat the issue.

Gender dysphoria is a condition where a person experiences discomfort or distress because there is a mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity, according to the NHS.

Mr Barrett said specific clinics for the condition were very busy and often patients were looking for hormone replacement therapy from their GP.

“Currently, however, in the experience of those of us who work at gender identity clinics as many as one in five GPs won’t prescribe for people with gender dysphoria, even after expert advice from an NHS clinic,” he wrote.

“Reasons that GPs have given me for this refusal include concerns about it being dangerous (it isn’t), difficult (it isn’t), expensive (it’s not, particularly), and I’ve also heard disturbingly frank admissions that it was against ‘deeply held Christian beliefs’ or that ‘we are trained to treat illnesses, not to change nature’.”

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