After resigning from controversial Tavistock gender clinic trust, a former governor says he fears we’re hurrying children down a transgender path they may bitterly regret
by Marcus Evans, Mailonline:
For four decades, I have devoted my career to trying to understand people who are greatly distressed and confused.
As an adult psychotherapist, I deal with patients who may express their feelings in challenging ways.
But my role is to pay careful attention and to try to tune in to what isn’t being said; the hidden aspects of a patient’s story.
The key to achieving this is patience, time and slow-moving, dogged determination — words that aren’t fashionable in a fast-paced world intent on quick fixes and budget cuts.
But it’s my view that to try to treat vulnerable patients in any other way can be hugely damaging.
This is, in part, the reason I resigned from my post as governor of The Tavistock & Portman NHS Foundation Trust last week.
A leaked internal report had branded the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at The Tavistock Centre, England’s only NHS youth gender clinic, ‘not fit for purpose’.
The overwhelming feeling was that some children in its care were not being given enough time in their psychological assessment and treatment.
It goes without saying that the area of mental health — and particularly relating to gender dysphoria — is highly complex.
The service was accused of being too quick to give children and young people medical treatment (hormone-blocking drugs).
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