https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-groups-under-fire-for-huge-rise-in-child-referrals-2ttm8c0fr

Professionals are under pressure. A Brighton teacher said: “What’s happening is worrying and many of us know it, but nobody wants to speak up and get shot.” The NHS gender service is caught between the demands of groups such as Mermaids, which want children given cross-sex hormones before they turn 16, and women’s campaigners, who accuse it of already bending too far to activists.

NHS England has signed an agreement, influenced by trans activists, never to “suppress an individual’s expression of . . . gender identity”. This still allows a range of treatments, but Richard Byng, a GP and professor in primary care research at Plymouth University, warned of the “potential harm of overdiagnosis and overtreatment” and said that “medical practitioners should follow a framework of evidence, not simply respond to client expectations”.

“People are embarking on medical transitions they may not need or want in the end,” said Jane Galloway. “I fear greatly that in 10 to 15 years’ time, we will find ourselves with a slew of young adults with mutilated bodies, no sexual function, who will turn round to the NHS and ask, ‘Why did you let us do this?’ ”