author-image
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Letters to the Editor: Trans clinic is failing vulnerable children

The Sunday Times

Your article “Sex-change sorrow” (News Review, last week) highlighted the Tavistock Centre, England’s only clinic devoted to treating transgender children. I am the governor who resigned from the Tavistock board after Dr David Bell wrote a report containing staff concerns about the rush to medical intervention, which bypassed thorough psychological evaluation.

I did so because I believed the trust tried to bury these important concerns about an experimental treatment of vulnerable children. It also displayed its prejudice by trying to discredit Dr Bell, a respected clinician, and the staff he spoke to.

The treatment of gender- dysphoric children has become highly politicised and, in many ways, operates outside good medical practice. There is pressure to view patients as consumers who have a choice