Mother criticizes ‘top-down agenda’ after publication of Cass report

While the 400 pages of the Cass report will be studied and debated, one thing is certain: young transgender people face an uncertain future.

The mother of a 17-year-old trans girl who was a patient at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust’s now closed Gender Identity Development Service (Guide) said she had initially welcomed Cass’s research but had been left ‘disappointed’. .

She believed the Tavistock was “fundamentally not fit for purpose” as a specialist clinic set up to treat a small number of patients, but the “hysterical environment” surrounding the report led to young people missing out on healthcare .

The closure of the Tavistock left her child’s care up in the air. “We wondered what on earth was going on. In fact, we heard nothing – the first letter we got from the NHS about what was going on was a week after Gids closed.”

She described being “tremendously shocked” when her child started saying she was a girl in 2015 at the age of eight. A charity recommended she be referred to the Tavistock, “on the basis that it would either go away or it wouldn’t. – and it didn’t go away.”

“(Because she was autistic) they did everything very slowly. Really, really slowly.”

“There had been some frustrating times in the beginning where I felt like as parents we were a little bit on the court, like they were looking for evidence that maybe this was something we had created,” she said.

“(I thought) do we really come across as the kind of parents who are very happy with a transgender child? We may be the kind of parents who would be absolutely willing to support our transgender child, but in an ideal world I would much prefer my child to grow up in a way where she didn’t stick out like a sore thumb and possibly end up dead. ”

Her daughter’s gender dysphoria diagnosis finally came in 2022, six years after they first saw a doctor. A year later, she started taking puberty blockers.

“Puberty blockers have been really good for her. As she entered puberty, she was really, really dysphoric across her shoulders, her facial hair grew, and her voice deepened. She was very upset about it and very sad.”

The woman said the Cass report represented “a top-down agenda that things need to get harder.” “It’s hard enough as a parent without society or the media pointing at transgender people as if they are an aberration or as if they threaten us.”

Amelia Hansford, a 25-year-old transgender journalist, agreed. Hansford himself was referred to Gids and also received private treatment. She said younger people were now in a worse position than she was when she sought help.

“I think if I was 15 or 16 years old and now growing up in Britain, with feelings of gender dysphoria… it’s just such a different time. And I think being a trans person is so dangerous in so many different ways.”

Hansford said trans care was undervalued by society considering how life-changing it can be. “I would say that continuing with (hormone therapies) for me is the best thing that ever happened to me,” she said.

“It has effectively changed my life. And I think it’s just important to emphasize that fact, that it was built out of necessity and it’s just the most important thing I think I’ve ever done in my life.

Hansford welcomed some of Cass’s recommendations, such as establishing regional centres, rather than having one in London.

“I think this is a step in the right direction,” she said. “But you do have to think about the implementation. If we see any problems with the regional centers that opened in early April… the expertise of the people who work there. If these regional centers aren’t up to snuff, this all becomes a moot point, right?”

An 18-year-old trans man who was prescribed puberty blockers at a private clinic before switching to gender-affirming hormones said he was disappointed at how difficult it would be for younger people to access them. He sought help at a private clinic because of the long waiting lists at the Tavistock.

“Puberty blockers should just be a break. And that was it for me,” he said, adding that they gave him time to think. “If I hadn’t gone to blockers, I wouldn’t have succeeded (as a man).”

The idea that someone was convincing young people to become trans, which “no one in their right mind would do”, meant it was becoming increasingly difficult for trans young people to access puberty blockers, he said.

But he said, “I think in a world where you have to choose your battles, (puberty blockers) in my opinion would not be the battle that I chose.”

What would it be? “Waiting lists.”