The infamous Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service for Children and Adolescents (GIDS) in London, England, is going to close its doors following two reports and a court judgement on how they scandalously did not collect any data regarding puberty blockers they prescribed to children and teens. GIDS does not have any data on the number of patients who were given puberty blockers, nor their ages or any reporting of the outcomes and effects of this supposed treatment. There is a growing medical literature questioning the wisdom of aggressively pushing puberty blockers to “buy time” for a gender confused kid or teen to figure out what they want to do, but as the High Court’s decision last year quite rightly pointed out, many of these minor patients lack the maturity to make this decision. Even if they were mature enough, the Tavistock GIDS lacked the information to ensure they could provide informed consent.
A personal injury lawyer in the UK noted “The law does not require clinicians to provide exemplary standards of care, it only requires healthcare professionals to exercise reasonable standards of care and skill.” It is clear that doctors are not exercising even this lower threshold of care; they are providing ideologically driven “gender-affirming care” that only encourages gender-confused children in their confusion.
