New Book Claims UKs Largest Pediatric Gender Clinic Ignored Autism Connection in Teens Seeking Sex Changes

The U.K.’s largest pediatric gender clinic has been accused in a new Book of medicalizing teens with comorbidities, including more than a third of patients who showed signs of “moderate to severe” autism.

The book, “Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock’s Gender Service for Children” Hannah Barnes, BBC Newsnight journalist, claims that the Tavistock Clinic (an NHS facility in the U.K. called the Gender Identity Development Service, (GIDS)), ignored evidence that 97.5% children who sought chemical and surgical sex reassignment were diagnosed with autism, depression, or any other conditions that could have contributed to their unhappiness. 

“Some staff feared they could be unnecessarily medicating autistic children,” Barnes wrote.

Barnes spent over 100 hours interviewing clinicians and patients to find out if the facility was pushing a protransgender policy. One whistleblower stated that they treated transgender children as if they were. “collateral damage.”

The book claims that former staff members claimed that many children with neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and ADHD were prescribed unnecessarily drugs and surgery. According to the book, less than 2% of U.K. children have autism spectrum disorders. However, 35% of GIDS referrals are autistic. “present with moderate to severe autistic traits.” 

The large and rapidly growing group of transgender children are heavily represented by the children and adolescents who are on the autism spectrum. In the last 10 years, at most there have been a few hundred transgender children. nine studies Transgender identities and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). These studies show that autistic traits are significantly more common in those with gender dysphoria than in the general population.

Some researchers believe the percentage of young girls with autism who believe they’re experiencing gender dysphoria is actually higher, and that many females who have autism go undiagnosed. Autism was only recently recognized as a condition. “boy’s diagnosis,” A ratio of 4 to 1 affects males and females. Experts now believe that girls’ autistic traits present differently, which may require a separate diagnostic criteria to detect. 

Recent Study Published A mathematical model was developed to predict the true male/female ratio in 2022. It was closer to a 3-4 ratio. According to the study, “Eighty percent of females remain undiagnosed at age 18, which has serious consequences for the mental health of young women.”

Tavistock staff raised similar concerns about medicating gay children unnecessarily. GIDS conducted a survey of adolescents who had been referred to it about their sexuality in 2012. It found that nearly 90% of them were same-sex attracted, bisexual or both. Anastassis Spiliadis and other clinicians believed that GIDS was providing a service. “conversion therapy for gay kids,” There was even a joke among the team about how there would be “no gay people left at the rate GIDS was going.” Barnes says that gay clinicians raised concerns to their supervisors, and were dismissed by them as being too closely tied to the work and thus not objective. This assertion was denied by the clinic. 

According to the book, children as young at 10 were referred by the clinic for prescriptions of puberty blocking drugs after just 20 minutes of consultation. Other children were referred without any investigation into co-occurring psychoiatric conditions. Barnes interviewed a social worker and estimated that only 1% of children were affected by the drug. “2 or 3%” of children treated at the clinic would have stayed transgender for life if they had not been given the controversial drug therapy.

Referred children to GIDS had a ten-fold higher chance than the national average of having a registered sexoffender as a father, 42% had lost a parent due to death or separation, and 70% had had more than five parents. “associated features” Such as anxiety, depression and abuse, self-harming, bullying, eating disorders, suicide attempts, or self-harm.

Barnes reported that some staff members at GIDS believed that drugs were denying children the chance to reconcile with their bodies. Anna Hutchinson is a senior clinical psychologist with GIDS. She stated that the service began quickly to be used. “accept everyone.”

Puberty blocking drugs were not intended to cause puberty, but they could be used to help children. “time to think” Dr. Hutchinson discovered that nearly all of them had taken cross-sex hormones like estrogen and testosterone, which can have irreversible consequences. It was an ah-ha moment for her. “holy f***” moment for her.

“Because what are the chances of 100% of people, offered time to think, thinking the same thing?” Dr. Hutchinson. “If the service was getting this wrong, it was getting it wrong with some of the most vulnerable children and young people.” She believes now that “some of those kids would not have identified as trans had they not been put on the medical pathway.”

“Of course, that doesn’t mean to say that identifying as trans is a bad outcome,” She continued. “But what is a bad outcome is creating a cohort of people who are medically dependent who’d never needed to be. And not only medically dependent, but perhaps — we don’t yet know — medically damaged.”

She now refers to GIDS as “scandalous in its negligence and scale.”

Barnes also described how Mermaids, a transgender charity, put enormous pressure on the clinic in order to refer young children to drugs and recommend surgery. One physician said they would. “absolutely attacked by Mermaids for just trying to stop and think with children.”

After a highly critical interim review in February 2022 by Dr. Hilary Cass (a highly-respected pediatrician who was brought in to examine the clinic by NHS England), it was announced that Tavistock would close its doors this spring. Dr. Cass’s conclusion was that services were “not a safe or viable long-term option” You can also find out more about a “fundamentally different service model” Was required.