Questions to Health after UK review of gender identity services

The review, the largest of its kind in the world, concluded that gender medicine was ‘built on shaky foundations’.

Paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass, who led the review into NHS services for youngsters questioning their identity, said that while doctors were usually cautious in emerging areas of medicine ‘quite the reverse happened in the field of gender care for children’.

Deputy Yvonne Burford has submitted a rule 14 question to HSC which asked the committee to set out any actions it would take following the publication of the Cass Review.

‘I have put the question to the committee as I think it is vitally important that HSC takes the substance and recommendations of the review into account where their policies on care for gender-related issues are concerned, particularly for children and adults at least up to the age of 25,’ said Deputy Burford.

‘The Cass Review is a much-needed report into an area where un-evidenced treatment and unquestioning acceptance through an affirmation-only model has caused significant harm to children and young people.’

HSC’s gender services are operated in partnerships or contracts with providers in the UK, but Deputy Burford believed the lessons of the Cass Review needed to be learned locally.

‘Recent exchanges I have had with the committee on this issue have served only to underscore my pre-existing concerns. Therefore, I look forward to a comprehensive response to my question,’ she said.

Dr Cass’s report was also critical of ‘toxicity’ in debate about gender issues, which she found had left health care professionals afraid to discuss their views openly.

The review was commissioned by NHS England in 2020 after a sharp rise in the number of patients referred to the NHS who were questioning their gender.

The 388-page report makes 32 recommendations on how gender services for children and young people should operate.

Guernsey Women’s Rights Network welcomed the report’s findings.

‘They have vindicated our opposition to the un-evidenced and harmful affirmation-only model of care for gender-distressed youth where children are progressed too quickly on the path to a lifetime of inreversibly harmful medication instead of the counselling they need,’ said co-ordinator Jane Roper.

‘We trust that HSC will take Dr Cass’s scathing criticism of current NHS gender clinics on board and review its policies accordingly.’

She wanted to see more promotion of talking therapy for children and young people confused by gender issues.

She also called on Education, Sport & Culture to review its policies on how gender issues are approached in schools.

‘We also need to address the root cause of this confusion and stop untrained political lobbyists from teaching Guernsey schoolchildren that ‘gender identities’ are real and that they may be transgender if they don’t conform to gender stereotypes,’ she said.

The LGBTQ charity Liberate was studying the Cass Review and said it would comment only after reading it in full.

HSC said it would be most appropriate to comment when it replies to Deputy Burford’s rule 14 questions.

It must answer her questions by 25 April.