My Lords, we know that the 18 to 25 year-olds have many of the same complex problems as the under-18s and, as the Minister has said, they need similar holistic wraparound care, although that is not necessarily yet in place. However, Dr Levy’s review had a narrower remit than mine, focused on quality improvement rather than the model of care, so as a next step would the Minister agree to ask departmental and NHSE colleagues to convene a group, which should include independent experts, representatives of professional groups and representatives of the new children’s and young people’s services as well as service users, to consider how we best understand and, importantly, improve clinical outcomes for this group of young adults?
Being forced to go through the wrong puberty is also life-changing. There is no course of action that is free of permanent consequences here. Kids who request to go on hormones should get hormones, as soon as they hit puberty. The odds they will not regret it are enormously higher than the odds they will. The only reason you think one of these options, the potentially life-saving one, should be flat-out illegal and one, the potentially fatal one, should be mandatory is transphobia, as the one you want to happen automatically in 100% of all cases only harms trans kids.
What about harming cis kids?
And why hormones and not puberty blockers? Aren’t hormones more irreversible than the purported affect of puberty blockers?
See, that’s the problem with you transphobes, you routinely place possible regret of one cis kid over the wellbeing of hundreds of trans kids. That’s the exact situation in the UK, you have 1 (in words: one) supposed “detransitioner” who claims she regretted treatment and the hundreds of trans kids that get denied treatment because of how her alleged mistake was weaponized and the dozens of trans kids that have killed themselves over this do not fucking matter to you. That’s pure transphobia, you prioritize one alleged cis person over hundreds of trans people because we do not matter to you.
I don’t mind if a trans kid wants to start with blockers, most just don’t. Trans kids have a right to grow up at the same pace as cis kids, it’s not ok to force them to stay in a child’s body while everybody around them can develop just because cis people feel uncomfortable and overwhelmed with things we understand better than them.
And even that compromise is never enough for you, it’s under attack anywhere. Why even bother arguing for that then? Why not voice what we actually demand and deserve?
I know several people who identified as transgender before they were 18 and didn’t get treatment and no longer identify as transgender. We’d have more of these detransitioners if we did what you suggested. I could have possibly been one of them.
It seems the issue here is suicide. Suicide can be prevented with methods that aren’t giving children life changing medication because they suspect they might be transgender.