UK High Court rules on paediatric gender transition

In October, Emily Wheater and I wrote a piece for The Critic on gender transition in children and young people, and growing numbers of detransitioners (individuals who regret seek to reverse a gender transition).

As a follow up, we also wrote a news article covering the controversial December 1st 2020 ruling by the High Court of England and Wales that under 16s are not likely to have sufficient maturity to consent to puberty-blocking treatment. This ruling was the result of a judicial review headed by Keira Bell, a woman who believes her treatment by the NHS’s Gender Identity Development Service was negligent and harmful.

Read more by following this link.

Transitioning to a medical scandal

I wrote this piece for The Critic with my friend Emily Wheater, who is studying for a PhD in neuroscience at Edinburgh University. We looked into the issue of detransition (when somebody medically changes gender, and then changes back again).

In the last decade, the number of teenage girls seeking to change gender has increased meteorically. With the increasing popularity and accessibility of gender transition, we have also seen a subsequent increase in numbers of individuals who detransition, many of whom consider themselves to have been harmed and treated with gross irresponsibility by the medical profession. One such young woman, Keira Bell, who we spoke to for the piece, recently launched a legal challenge against the clinic that treated her, saying that minors do not have the capacity to consent to irreversable sex change treatment. The outcome of this judicial review has not yet been announced.*

Despite the increasing numbers and public profile of detransitioners, the official view in progressive circles is that detransition is a non-issue, and the object of faux concern from conservatives who wish to restrict access to gender transition. We looked into the arguments given by organisations like Stonewall and Mermaids, and uncovered some extremely dodgy usage of statistics as well as some extremely troubling attitudes towards young people who have been left with irreversible bodily alterations.

Click the link to read more.

* Update: On the 1st of December 2020, the High Court of England and Wales ruled on this case that under 16s are unlikely to have sufficient maturity to consent to medical gender transition. Read my and Emily’s news coverage of this ruling here.

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https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/november-2020/transitioning-to-a-medical-scandal/

https://thecritic.co.uk/the-child-trans-judgement-is-a-step-in-the-right-direction/