Was lief in der Tavistock-Klinik für Trans-Teenager schief?
Hannah Barnes, renommierte BBC-Journalistin, hat genau recherchiert, wie es zur Schließung der berühmten Gender-Klinik für Kinder und Jugendliche Tavistock GIDS gekommen ist und was bei einer aktuellen Warteliste von 8.000 Überweisungen (Stand Dezember 2022) für die Zukunft geplant ist.
Time to think - The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock’s Gender Service for Children, H. Barnes, 23.03.2023
Gender identity services in the UK are on pause as evidence comes under scrutiny, H. Barnes, BMJ, 08.03.2023
Tavistock: Top doctor questions need for change at gender clinic, bbc, 24.05.2023
Closure of controversial Tavistock gender clinic for children delayed, The Telegraph, 12.05.2023
Times Magazine Sonderbericht
Im Times Magazine erschien am 17.06.2022 ein Sonderbericht über den
Bereits 1994 wurde eine sehr kleine Gender-Klinik für Kinder und Jugendliche unter dem Dach von Tavistock angesiedelt, Chef bis ca. 2016 war Dominico Di Cegli. Zunächst waren 75 % der wenigen Fälle „weiblich erscheinende" Jungen. Im Rahmen einer ruhigen unvoreingenommenen Therapie wurde versucht, die Ursachen für deren gendernonkonformes Verhalten zu finden.
„Known as “watchful waiting”, this approach acknowledged some children with gender dysphoria would later live as trans adults, while the vast majority of cases resolved themselves around puberty and, crucially, it was impossible to diagnose which way a child would go.”
Ab 2011 begann die Klinik Pubertätsblocker auf breiter Basis zur Verfügung zustellen, da es auch eine entsprechende Nachfrage gab. Mittlerweile hatte die Anzahl der biologischen Mädchen die der Jungen bereits überholt. 2014 wurde das Verschreibungsalter für Blocker von 16 auf 11 Jahre gesenkt und die Klinikleitung rührte die Werbetrommel für den „Pausenknopf ohne Nebenwirkungen” obwohl es keine Langzeitstudien gab.
Durch den Anstieg der Zahl genderdysphorischer Teenager (allein die Zahl der Mädchen war in 7 Jahren um 5.000 % gestiegen) war die Klinik schnell überlastet, es gab viele Neueinstellungen, aber kein anerkanntes Behandlungsmodell bzw. ausreichende formelle klinischen Leitlinien, sodass die Rede von der „Kliniker-Lotterie” aufkam (Cass-Interim-Report S. 16, 45).
Unter den genderdysphorischen Mädchen waren auch relativ viele Magersüchtige. Ein GIDS-Mitarbeiter berichtete:
„Most anorexics are natal females who reject their femininity and are repulsed by their secondary sex characteristics. They were being put on puberty blockers, which is awful as they’re already not developing because of their eating disorder. So you are double-blocking them.”
Ab 2015 konnten Hausärzte, Schulen und Sozialarbeiter Teenager direkt an das GIDS überweisen, ohne eine formale Diagnose von Genderdysphorie.
„Too often a troubled child is seen by overstretched, underfunded CAMHS (child and adolescent mental health services) with multiple problems, but if gender is mentioned they will be offloaded to GIDS, their other problems remaining unaddressed while they sit on a two-year waiting list.”
Diese 2 Jahre Wartezeit wurden dann in der Regel nicht genutzt, um eine ganzheitliche Psychotherapie durchzuführen und/oder sich um Komorbiditäten zu kümmern.
“No matter that a significant proportion of [its increasing] new referrals were on the autism spectrum, or already suffering eating disorders, or were in care, or had complex histories of trauma or abuse — the [Tavistock] GIDS leadership pursued an ‘affirmative’ approach which critics said effectively treated a child’s declaration that they were born in the wrong body as sacrosanct and treated all their other complex problems through the prism of gender,” Lucy Bannerman, The Times, 28.07.2022
Etliche MitarbeiterInnen des GIDS schrieben Briefe und sprachen mit dem Personalchef Dr. David Bell über Ungereimtheiten, die ihnen aufgefallen waren. Eine beträchtliche Anzahl an TherapeutInnen verließ das GIDS.
Auch Sue Evans hat einige Jahre im Team von Tavistock GIDS gearbeitet und wurde schließlich zur Whistleblowerin, hier ihr Bericht:
How Tavistock Came Tumbling Down, 04.08.2022
Das passierte in den letzten 5 Jahren:
- Die GD bei Teenager hat seit 2017 eine Bezeichnung und eine Beschreibung: ROGD
- Die Klage von Keira Bell brachte den GIDS und die Behandlungssituation und -verfahren in den Blickpunkt
- der Öffentlichkeit
- Einige europäische Länder, wie Finnland, Schweden, Frankreich und Norwegen haben ihre Behandlungen geändert und mahnen zur Vorsicht gegenüber der medizinischen Transition von Minderjährigen.
- Es gab einige kritische Anmerkungen von Professionals in den USA, z. B. von E. Anderson: A fair number of kids are getting into it because it’s trendy.
- Die Anklagen und Suspendierungen von Drs. Michael und Helen Webberley von der privaten Trans-Klinik Gender-GP
- 2019 schrieb Kristy Entwistle, ehemalige Klinikerin beim GIDS, einen offenen Brief an die GIDS-Leitung, Polly Carmichael
- Es gab den kritischen Cass-Review (Zwischenbericht) im Februar 2022
- Im Juli übermittelt Hilary Cass dem NHS ihre Vorstellungen einer inhaltlichen und organisatorischen Neuausrichtung in einem Brief.
Diese Ereignisse stimmen die Autorin des Sonderberichts im Times Magazin, Janice Turner, optimistisch:
„It looks ever more certain it will be the Tavistock whistleblowers, rather than those advocating sterilising drugs and double mastectomies for troubled children, who will end up on the right side of history.”
What Went Wrong at the Tavistock Clinic for Trans Teenagers? Times Magazine, 17.06.2022
Why I Resigned from Tavistock: Trans-Identified Children Need Therapy, not Just 'Affirmation' and Drugs, M. Evans, 2020
Tavistock Gender-Klinik schließt
Am 28.07.2022 wurde bekannt, dass die Tavistock Gender-Klinik zum Frühjahr 2023 geschlossen werden soll:
Tavistock transgender clinic shut down by NHS after review finds it is ‘not safe’ for children, msn, 28.07.2022
This could become the biggest medical scandal of the century, dailymail, 28.07.2022
Courage of the parents, patients and whistleblowers ..., dailymail, 28.07.2022
England Overhauls Medical Care for Transgender Youth, nytimes, 28.07.2022
Gender clinics face scrutiny of science at last - Hilary Cass’s report vindicates the many whistleblowers who for years had raised concerns about the Tavistock Centre, nytimes, 29.07.2022
World's Largest Pediatric Gender Clinic Shut Down Due Poor Evidence, Risk of Harm and Operational Failures, SE°GM, 29.07.2022
U.K. paves the way with reasonable reforms to gender-identity services, nationalpost Kanada, 05.08.2022
England’s trans teens, lost in limbo, face mounting barriers to care, Reuters, 15.12.2022
TTSB-Stellungnahme zur Klinikschließung | Forderung nach ganzheitlicher Behandlung von GD-Teens&Twens vom 05.08.2022
Tavistock gender clinic ‘to be sued by 1,000 families’, thetimes, 11.08.2022
Spinning the Tavistock story, 23.09.2022
The ‘holy f***’ moment I knew something was wrong at the Tavistock, The Times, 12.02.2023
Mothers of 'vulnerable' teenage daughters take the NHS to court as they claim their girls are being fast-tracked to 'irreversible' gender-change treatments, dailymail 06.08.2023
Wenn die von Hilary Cass geäußerte Kritik gerechtfertigt ist, könnte es in Gerichtsverfahren mehrere Arten von Vorwürfen geben, darunter
- unzureichende Untersuchungen,
- das Ignorieren von Komorbiditäten,
- die Anwendung unzureichend erforschter Behandlungen (wie Pubertätsblocker) und
- Fragen zur Einwilligung der Patienten.
Tavistock Clinic fallout: what the courts would consider in litigation by former patient, 15.08.2022
O-Töne zur Schließung des Tavistock GIDS
The Times
The once pioneering north London centre focusing on the psychiatric care of children has become an institute captured by a pernicious clique of 'queer theory' trans activists, unwilling to question the reliance on puberty blockers, analyse the longterm effects of this untested treatment, or tolerate any dis-senting opinion among staff. The Tavistock failed to collect data on puberty blockers for those under 16, refused to follow up the effects of its treatments and paid virtually no attention to other common factors such as autism, eating disorders or histories of trauma and abuse. It naively confused sexual orientation with gender identity, accepted at face value all decla-rations by children that they were born in the wrong body and treated all complex problems through the prism of gender.
Clinical Damage - The Tavistock Centre’s closure follows a damning report on ideological malpractice, nytimes, 29.07.2022, Beitragstext
Bernard Lane, australischer Journalist, fragt:
"How, then, did the UK manage to devise and enact a credible policy shift toward caution on the issue of medicalised gender change for minors? Are there lessons for countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, and Spain, where, so far, dogmatic slogans have trumped critical thought?"
Andere Länder schlafen seiner Meinung nach noch:
"This is a sleeper issue in many affluent countries, where youth gender clinics have gone from novelty to claimed essential service in the space of just a few years, with scant official oversight or public awareness. Britain’s path to remedying this situation, however incomplete the process may be, offers a precedent that responsible politicians, journalists, clinicians, and parents in other nations should monitor carefully."
Shuttering the Tavistock - The closure of Britain’s scandal-plagued youth gender clinic could help protect distressed children from unnecessary medicalisation, B. Lane, 05.08.2022
Lionel Shriver, Spectator
"Anti-science. The notion that some people are ‘born in the wrong body’ belongs right up there with belief in phrenology (the Victorians), ‘wandering wombs’ (ancient Greece) or the vital medical balancing of ‘the four humours’, blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile (Hippocrates)."
"Maybe the Tavistock’s closure is a watershed, after which British institutions will gradually reconnect to reality, to nature, to science. But the trans trend has sunk its delusional claws deep into our schools, our media, our civil service. For adolescents often suffering from autism, anxiety, eating disorders or plain unpopularity, declaring as trans marks them as modern, cutting-edge."
Good riddance to the Tavistock, Spectator, 06.08.2022
Transgender-Trend
„The separation of gender dysphoria into a specialist area has led to the profound failings of a service which has replaced normal levels of care with a fast-track medical transition service for ‘trans kids.’
The separation of these children into their own clinic, away from other pediatric services, has helped to promulgate the idea at the heart of child transition activism: that these children are somehow ‘different’ to other children and fall outside normal understandings of child development and normal standards of safeguarding and patient safety.”
The Tavistock gender clinic to be closed down, Transgendertrend, 30.07.2022
Kemi Badenoch (Gleichstellungsministerin von 02/2020 - 07/2022)
„The reason it took this long for the Tavistock to be shut down is that activists succeeded in creating an environment in which critics and journalists felt unable to interrogate the dogma that youngsters should be able to medically transition in the way overseen by Tavistock.”
The Tavistock scandal shows the dangers of civil service groupthink, The Times, 30.07.2022
NY Sun (USA)
It is time to follow the lead of England, Sweden, and Finland and govern the treatment of gender dysphoric children based on data and honest analysis and not ideological conformity.
Europe Steps Back From ‘Trans Rights’ Agenda for Children, NY Sun, 31.07.2022
Kathleen Stock
„When looking for a suitable Homeric metaphor for GIDS clinicians and their endocrinologist associates, we should probably think about sirens, luring passing young sailors with enticing songs to their ruin on the rocks. Perhaps the sirens are somewhat quietened now, thanks to Dr Hillary Cass and her review. Unfortunately, though, there are Mermaids still out there. With a bit of luck and a following wind, the closure of GIDS will eventually spell the end of them too.”
Why the Tavistock had to fall - Its ideological roots were rotten from the start, K. Stock, 01.08.2022
Sinead Watson, Detrans
„A woman who had testosterone injections and a mastectomy at the Scottish equivalent of the Tavistock clinic before 'detransitioning' back has said that its children’s service should be closed. ...
After the surgery, however, she found 'I had taken testosterone, I had undergone surgery and I was talking about wanting to get a hysterectomy. But I was still just as depressed and as f***ing miserable as I had been.'"
Close down Sandyford gender clinic to children, says former patient, thetimes, 06.08.2022