Children With Autism Given Puberty Blockers in UK Despite Not Suffering Gender Dysphoria, Experts Fear
Nearly 150 British children who have autism were given puberty blockers after being referred to the country's only clinic for transgender children even though they might not be suffering from gender dysphoria at all, according to an official report.
A new "practice review" by leading clinicians at its Gender Identity Development Service has revealed that puberty blocker drugs, which prevent the body from maturing, were given to up to 150 autistic children at Tavistock Clinic in London between 2011 and 2017, according to The Mail.
While only 1 percent of the population is thought to be autistic, a third of those referred to the clinic displayed strong signs of autism, the report showed.
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The administering of drugs based on the assumption that they were born the "wrong" sex could lead to children having irreversible sex change treatment, it is feared.
These drugs can also permanently weaken bones, according to experts.
"It would be an absolute scandal if, 20 years from now, we discovered a load of people who are not transgender at all had been stuck on to a medical pathway because NHS personnel were told not to challenge young people who said they were transgender," Tory MP David Davies was quoted as saying.
In January, a psychologist at the clinic said that girls as young as 11 were being placed on puberty blockers and hormone treatment, and warned that schools act "within minutes" to register a child as the opposite sex.
Bernadette Wren, consultant clinical psychologist at the Gender Identity Development Service clinic in London, warned that schools in the U.K. were moving too fast in labeling a child as a member of the opposite sex.
"Schools might wait for the parents to approach them before changing things like names in the register, uniforms, pronouns, toilets, sports," she said at the time. "If a school just gets a whisper of a child who may be querying their gender and within minutes they are doing everything to make sure that child is regarded as a member of the opposite sex right from the word go — that may not be the best for that child."
Earlier this month, The Christian Institute in the U.K. said the number of children, some as young as 6, being referred under the guidance promoting transsexualism at schools after they express confusion over their "gender identity" had reached a record high in Scotland.
As many as 222 children were referred to specialist services last year, a 21 percent increase since the previous year. The average age of those being referred had also fallen from 15 years in 2014 to younger than 14 in 2017.
Last October, doctors in the U.S. warned about the permanent consequences associated with "experimental" puberty-blocking and sex-reassignment treatments, and about their justification not being backed by strong scientific evidence.
"What you are doing when you do a pubertal blockade is you are interrupting a normal developmental process," explained Paul Hruz, a St. Louis-based doctor who is a professor of pediatrics, endocrinology, cell biology and physiology at the Washington University School of Medicine. "Even if five, six or seven years later you stop that intervention, you cannot go back in time. You have already altered that development. It is incorrect and totally false to say that it is reversible."
