According to a report by The Daily Telegraph, seven-year-olds will be eligible for referral to NHS England’s new service for gender-confused children and young people. This new service for gender dysphoria treatment considers children as young as seven to be mature enough for specialist care. The controversial Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), which previously accepted children as young as three for transitioning, is set to be replaced by two regional hubs based on interim guidance informed by the Cass Review on GIDS clinical practice.
The plans suggest that seven-year-olds have a sufficient understanding of “sex and gender” to comprehend the reasons and potential consequences of referral to a specialist gender incongruence service. It is also believed that by this age, children will have become established within their schools, allowing educational professionals and school nurses to contribute to an observational view on the appropriateness of referral.
However, whistleblower Dr. David Bell, formerly associated with the Tavistock trust, argues that referrals at such a young age risk labeling the child’s difficulties primarily as gender-related, potentially leading to a pathway of medical transition. Dr. Bell believes it would be more appropriate for children at younger ages to be seen as individuals who are distressed and managed by Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services instead.
These plans come amidst confusion around terminology related to transgender issues. A recent poll conducted by Survation for policy analysis group Murray Blackburn Mackenzie (MBM) revealed that over a third of respondents did not understand that terms like “transgender woman” or “trans woman” referred to biological males who identified as women.