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I cannot think of anything worse than sending children on a pathway to medical intervention when they are in desperate need of support
Julie Bindel 14 February 2023 • 2:44pm
The claim that the Tavistock clinic did not fully consider the link between transgender identities and autism in children comes as no surprise to me, or to the many others who have been campaigning to end the medicalisation of childhood distress.
The new book Time to Think by Hannah Barnes, a BBC Newsnight journalist, claims that only 2.5 per cent of the children passing through the clinic were not on the autistic spectrum or without other problems such as depression. Staff at the clinic were reportedly afraid of being labelled transphobic, and reticent about expressing discomfort at sending children on a pathway of puberty blockers – treatments which almost inevitably lead to the prescription of cross sex hormones once they reach 18.
Some children receiving these treatments will turn out to simply be gay or lesbian. As we have seen in Iran, sex change surgeries are not only performed in progressive societies where equality between men and women is baked into the culture, but in places where it is criminalised to be lesbian or gay.
Were I a teenaged lesbian today, I have no doubt whatsoever that I would have been deeply swayed by the notion that I was really a boy trapped in a girl’s body. I used to be accused of being a boy regularly at school in the 1970s, because it was difficult for other children, and even many adults, to imagine that a “real girl” could possibly reject boys and rather be attracted to girls. The blatant homophobia I experienced was because I had stepped out of the role assigned to me as female and refused to adhere to sex stereotypes.
Additionally, the problems that I had as a young woman, as a result of experiencing sexual violence, and also anti-lesbian abuse and social exclusion, would today be (mis)understood and explained by gender clinicians as my being transgender. Rather than needing some kind of talking therapy, I would be a perfect candidate for puberty blockers and – later down the line – sex change surgery.
Transitioning kids with disabilities is a form of eugenics. It is effectively ignoring every other mental health and social cognitive issue that a child may experience, and the problems that may be occurring in their family or at their school in favour of packaging them neatly in a box that says “transgender child”. I cannot think of anything worse than sending children on a lifelong pathway of medical intervention and condemning them to live as the opposite sex, when they are in fact in desperate need of support for their autistic condition.
Hopefully, Barnes’ book will be the final nail in the coffin when it comes to transgender ideology and its effect on young people who are considered atypical, or who live on the margins of society. We need to be supporting children that have developed chronic mental health conditions as a result of sexual abuse or bigotry, or who are misunderstood as autistic young people. There is no room for transgender ideology when it comes to children, and no child deserves being medicalised inappropriately when they are crying out for the type of support that may enrich as opposed to ruin their lives.
Transitioning children with disabilities is a form of eugenics
I cannot think of anything worse than sending children on a pathway to medical intervention when they are in desperate need of support
Julie Bindel 14 February 2023 • 2:44pm
The claim that the Tavistock clinic did not fully consider the link between transgender identities and autism in children comes as no surprise to me, or to the many others who have been campaigning to end the medicalisation of childhood distress.
The new book Time to Think by Hannah Barnes, a BBC Newsnight journalist, claims that only 2.5 per cent of the children passing through the clinic were not on the autistic spectrum or without other problems such as depression. Staff at the clinic were reportedly afraid of being labelled transphobic, and reticent about expressing discomfort at sending children on a pathway of puberty blockers – treatments which almost inevitably lead to the prescription of cross sex hormones once they reach 18.
Some children receiving these treatments will turn out to simply be gay or lesbian. As we have seen in Iran, sex change surgeries are not only performed in progressive societies where equality between men and women is baked into the culture, but in places where it is criminalised to be lesbian or gay.
Were I a teenaged lesbian today, I have no doubt whatsoever that I would have been deeply swayed by the notion that I was really a boy trapped in a girl’s body. I used to be accused of being a boy regularly at school in the 1970s, because it was difficult for other children, and even many adults, to imagine that a “real girl” could possibly reject boys and rather be attracted to girls. The blatant homophobia I experienced was because I had stepped out of the role assigned to me as female and refused to adhere to sex stereotypes.
Additionally, the problems that I had as a young woman, as a result of experiencing sexual violence, and also anti-lesbian abuse and social exclusion, would today be (mis)understood and explained by gender clinicians as my being transgender. Rather than needing some kind of talking therapy, I would be a perfect candidate for puberty blockers and – later down the line – sex change surgery.
Transitioning kids with disabilities is a form of eugenics. It is effectively ignoring every other mental health and social cognitive issue that a child may experience, and the problems that may be occurring in their family or at their school in favour of packaging them neatly in a box that says “transgender child”. I cannot think of anything worse than sending children on a lifelong pathway of medical intervention and condemning them to live as the opposite sex, when they are in fact in desperate need of support for their autistic condition.
Hopefully, Barnes’ book will be the final nail in the coffin when it comes to transgender ideology and its effect on young people who are considered atypical, or who live on the margins of society. We need to be supporting children that have developed chronic mental health conditions as a result of sexual abuse or bigotry, or who are misunderstood as autistic young people. There is no room for transgender ideology when it comes to children, and no child deserves being medicalised inappropriately when they are crying out for the type of support that may enrich as opposed to ruin their lives.
