In case we were under the illusion that “gender-affirming care” was a thing of the past here in the UK after the closure of the Tavistock clinic, Nick Wallis in the Sunday Times today has news for us:
The NHS is caught up in what the Swedish psychiatrist Dr Sven Román has described as “one of the biggest medical scandals in history”. This is so-called gender-affirming care, cheer-led by activist doctors who believe it is possible to be born in the “wrong” body. The NHS enthusiasm for gender ideology has undoubtedly caused harm. A growing cohort of people are living with the scars made by gender surgeons, desperately trying to warn anyone who will listen that affirmative care is a form of medical malpractice.
The sheer number of people being sent for gender reassignment operations should alarm us all. In 2024 and 2025 more than 2,400 adults were referred by NHS clinics for gender-related cosmetic chest surgery — including double mastectomies — and a further 2,500 men and women were referred for surgery to remove and rearrange part or all of their genitals. This information came to light in a freedom of information response published in April this year. We do not yet have the figures for 2026.
Startlingly, 17 per cent of the 4,900 referrals came from the Welsh Gender Service, the sole adult NHS gender clinic in Wales, even though Wales makes up less than 5 per cent of the UK population. Campaigners and worried family members have been trying for years to warn Senedd members and senior NHS officials in Wales that they have a possible rogue clinic on their hands. In 2024 an independent review of the Welsh Gender Service was promised. It has yet to begin, but the figures published in April appear to have finally prompted some action.
On Monday NHS Wales designated the Welsh Gender Service a “potential service of concern” because of its “higher rates of surgical referral than seen in comparable services” and other “issues” NHS Wales refuses to make public. If the concerns are escalated, the Welsh Gender Service can be put into the NHS equivalent of special measures. We are told the long-promised review is imminent.
Nonetheless NHS Wales has refused to pause surgery referrals or scheduled surgery (which actually takes place in England) while the review of the service is running. This has traumatised one mother I spoke to, whose autistic adult son is due to have his genitals removed in October. She has personal experience of the Welsh Gender Service and told me: “They’re just hell-bent on getting these kids through their treatment — onto hormones and onto the theatre table, basically … It’s criminal.”…
Feminising or masculinising genital surgery is a high-risk operation which can and does go wrong. The latter can include a full hysterectomy. Cross-sex hormones can cause blood clots, breast cancer, elevated liver enzymes, heart attack and stroke, compromised fertility and impaired sexual function. The drugs are prescribed off label. No one inside or outside the NHS really knows what their long-term use will do to the body or brain.
And, of course, it’s nonsense, based on the absurdity of gender ideology. No one can change their sex. But still the mutilations continue.
Those stories are just the tip of the iceberg. When the growing number of people who feel they have been ruined by gender surgery begin to find their voices, we’ll see more legal claims against the NHS and the individual doctors responsible. Only then will the true horrors of this industry be exposed.
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