Puberty blockers given to children as young as NINE at ‘Scotland’s Tavistock Centre’

By Sanchez Manning for The Mail on Sunday

For Ritchie Herron, a bright and articulate Newcastle civil servant, the life of the past four years has become almost unbearable. It takes him ten minutes to empty his bladder, a process as painful as it is slow. Any sex drive is long gone. In fact, he says, his crotch is numb, ‘shocked’ at the damage done to him under the ostensible care of the NHS.

“Numb” rather sums up Ritchie’s whole demeanor as he struggles to process what happened to him. Today he reveals – in an exclusive interview – that he is the man preparing legal action against the NHS over an operation to remove his genitals.

Ritchie’s case came to light last week when he posted about his experience on Twitter under a pseudonym, TullipR. His brief testimony, which was picked up by the Daily Mail, was as shocking as it was devastating to the NHS ‘gender clinics’ that help people change sex.

Ritchie, 35, struggled with mental health issues — and after decades of suppressing his homosexuality — thought the answer was to become a woman. But instead, he says, he quickly made “the biggest mistake of his life” and became infertile, incontinent and with persistent pain.

Not only had the NHS clinic failed to take into account his spiraling mental health crisis, he claims, but it had not properly advised him on the risks.

Ritchie has decided to renounce his anonymity to fully tell the story of his ordeal, detail the physical and mental scars he left behind — and warn that there are more like him ready to take legal action. about the operation they bitterly regret.

His report raises serious questions about the safeguards in place at the NHS’s gender clinics, where referrals have increased by 1,700 per cent over the past decade, mainly by children and young adults.

The speed at which Ritchie — who lived as a woman named Abby — was diagnosed and then referred for irreversible surgery is in itself disturbing.

In fact, he says, he had repeatedly rejected the procedure and expressed deep doubts with the clinic’s staff about having it.

His case, he says, could spark a wave of new claims.

“This is an avalanche waiting to happen,” he told The Mail on Sunday. ‘Transition is now being sold to people en masse. It’s like PPI, but more sinister.

“I’m sure in a few years we’ll have law firms asking people if they’ve switched and want to claim damages.”

According to Ritchie, no professional has examined whether mental health issues led him to believe he was trans.

Today, he is one of a growing number of ‘de-transitioners’, living like a man again and regretting his ‘mistake’. Much of his confusion was about accepting he was gay, he now admits.

Ritchie says he buried his sexuality, which left him with depressive, anxious and obsessive-compulsive disorder, in which he used repetitive behaviors to mask his unhappiness.

In his twenties, he came across the idea of ​​gender dysphoria in an internet chat room. Older men on the forum convinced the vulnerable young man that he must ‘be trans’.

At the time, it felt like a lightbulb moment for Ritchie. After a series of breakdowns, he decided to seek professional help in 2012.

He was referred to a psychologist, who did not dissuade him from thinking he had gender dysphoria, and then to the Northern Region Gender Dysphoria Service, run by Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne & Wear NHS Foundation Trust.

The waiting list for appointments was long, but preoccupied with the idea, Ritchie took out a personal loan in March 2014 to pay for an appointment at a private gender clinic.

According to Ritchie, he was diagnosed with “transsexuality” after just two 30-minute appointments.

A psychiatrist advised him to take drugs to block his testosterone production – the first step to sex reassignment.

The only attempt to slow down came from a close relative, who came with him to the clinic appointment. Ritchie says, “She told the doctor that I was on a high dose of antidepressants and had many complex problems, and yet they referred me for gender treatment.”

So why did Ritchie go along with it? “I was 26,” he says, “but I was very vulnerable.”

He started living full-time under the name Abby, dressed in women’s clothes. He started developing breasts because of the testosterone suppressing drugs. In March 2015, he attended appointments at the NHS gender clinic in Newcastle.

“The first question you’re asked there is, ‘Do you want genital surgery?’ ‘ he says. ‘I wasn’t sure. But I’d heard you could get therapy if you were on the waiting list for surgery, so I said yes.’

The clinic — which declined to comment on Ritchie’s specific case — told the MoS it does not provide mental health services to patients.

Less than six months later, in July 2015, Ritchie received a referral for vaginal surgery. Ritchie says he told the psychiatrist he wasn’t sure and turned it down, but continued to receive therapy.

In 2017, he was given another referral for surgery to be performed at Nuffield Health hospital in Brighton, but paid for by the NHS. Ritchie again declined — but says he was told if he didn’t accept the referral he would be fired from the service.

This put him in a ‘downspin’, he recalls. He believed it meant his therapy would also be discontinued, which had been a “lifeline.” He had recently admitted to being suicidal.

At 10:00 AM on May 23, 2018, Ritchie was wheeled into the operating room. “I didn’t even see the surgeon,” he says. “I was very much in the ‘I’m here now, there’s no stopping me, even if I wanted to.'” ‘

The irreversible surgery involves removing the penis and testicles and reshaping the area to resemble female genitals.

For eight days he lay in a haze of painkillers. His first thought as he regained his clarity was, “O God, what have I done?”

Ritchie is now planning a lawsuit against Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne & Wear NHS Foundation Trust. His attorney, Peter Harthan, says patients like Ritchie have had “a lifetime of medical care and consequences” and “cannot be put back together.”

He adds: ‘My concern is that clinicians have failed to identify red flags and change direction. Sufficient attention should be given to issues such as OCD, internalized homophobia, depression, drug use, sexual abuse and childhood trauma as possible reasons for patients to reject their sexed bodies.’

In a statement, the Trust said it was unable to comment on any individual, but added: ‘Care plans are collaborative and tailored to each patient’s needs and goals, and treatment decisions are made after a thorough review in accordance with national recommendations. .’

Ritchie says, “I’m proof that the whole system needs to become much more robust. How many more people are like me?’