Australian gender clinics are under fresh scrutiny and face calls for an independent review of their prescription of puberty blockers to teenagers after a leading British clinic was closed down over safety concerns. The ordered close of the Tavistock Clinic – the model for treating trans people around the world – on Thursday followed concerns raised by doctors that young patients were being referred on to a gender transitioning path too quickly and that there was insufficient evidence as to the long-term cognitive and physical impacts of puberty blockers. With several major Australian gender clinics based at children’s hospitals having been strongly influenced by the Tavistock Clinic, some doctors say the findings of the British review by Dr Hilary Cass are likely to apply equally in Australia amid a dominance of a “gender affirming” approach to treating gender dysphoria. Source: The Australian
Is Canada, and perhaps the U.S. next? Here’s hoping.
“Puberty blockers, rather than acting as a “pause button” allowing children time to explore their identity, seem to lock them into a medicalised treatment pathway,” Dr Cass’s interim report said.
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