Mick Hartley

James Esses – who was fired from his job at Childline for voicing concerns about troubled young people being encouraged to mutilate their bodies – writes about the inconsistencies at the heart of the government's approach to medical transitioning:

We are regularly told that puberty blockers simply press the ‘pause button’ on puberty. But this is untrue. Studies have shown them to have negative impacts on brain growth and bone density. A child’s natural development is disrupted and can never proceed exactly as it should have, even if medication is later stopped. Research has also shown that ‘living as’ the other sex for a period of time can cause brain changes, making it more difficult for a child to come to accept their bodily selves.

Puberty blockers are a slippery slope, with studies showing over 90 per cent of children on puberty blockers go on to take cross-sex hormones. These hormones come with the risk of irreversible changes to hair growth and voice, impaired sexual functioning, cardiovascular conditions and, most worryingly, potential infertility.

Given that research demonstrates the majority of children with gender dysphoria will settle into their bodies, if given time, the medicalised pathway we are placing children on is deeply worrying.

Furthermore, increasingly younger children are being placed on this one-way path towards medicalisation, with parents being assured that if children start puberty blockers before they have even commenced puberty, this will make their lives easier.

When we consider this alongside other laws, regulations, rules and recommendations in place to govern child welfare and wellbeing in the UK, the stark inconsistency is clear.

Children under the age of 10 cannot be held legally responsible for a crime. Children under the age of 11 cannot open their own bank account. Children under the age of 12 cannot purchase Christmas crackers. Children under the age of 13 cannot engage in part-time employment. Nor can they sign up to Facebook. Children under the age of 14 cannot be in the standing section of a live concert. Children under the age of 16 cannot join the army, own a pet, buy aerosol paint or consent to having sex.

Children under the age of 18 cannot purchase scratch cards. They cannot get a tattoo. They cannot purchase cigarettes. They cannot drink alcohol in licenced premises. They cannot purchase fireworks. They cannot get married (unless they are 16 or 17 with parental permission). They cannot sit on a jury. They cannot vote in a UK parliamentary election….

We now find ourselves in a situation in which a child in the UK may not be able to buy a scratch card, but they are able to consent to highly potent, experimental treatment with no long-term data on the effects, all for a mental-health condition that usually resolves itself. And they can be left irreversibly scarred, both mentally and physically.

The sad truth of the matter is that we have robbed our children of one of the greatest wonders of childhood: the ability to try things out, make mistakes and then move on throughout life unscathed. For those children who proceed down a medical pathway that they later regret, the blame does not lie with them. It lies squarely with us, the adults. For we should have never allowed them to make that decision in the first place.

We're basically robbing them of their childhood.

But, thank goodness, there are limits:

A "reckless" doctor who wrongly prescribed puberty blockers to a transgender nine-year-old child after a ten minute chat on Skype has been struck off.

Michael Webberley’s treatment of 24 patients was deemed a "catalogue of failings" between February 2017 and June 2019, a tribunal found.

Seven of these patients related to GenderGP, a controversial private online clinic which a Telegraph investigation found was willing to prescribe sex change drugs and puberty blockers to children as young as 12 without asking them to talk to a doctor.

The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) imposed its most severe sanction on Wednesday, erasing Dr Webberley from the medical register.

It ruled that his behaviour was "fundamentally incompatible with being a doctor" and amounted to "serious misconduct"…

Dr Webberley ran GenderGP with his wife and fellow GP, Dr Helen Webberley, who has received an interim suspension by the MPTS while a tribunal is ongoing.

A Telegraph investigation previously found that the online clinic used a legal loophole to flout NHS rules to issue valid prescriptions, which can then be used to obtain the medication from pharmacies in Britain, after the clinic was relocated to Spain in 2019. The pair are no longer listed as directors.

More on Helen Webberley and GenderGP here.