The GutterView Transcripts

  Landmark ruling restricts puberty blockers for children Lucy Bannerman Tuesday December 01 2020, 5.00pm GMT, The Times Children will find it harder to obtain puberty blockers and other medication during treatment to change gender after a landmark ruling. Judges at the High Court found that it was “highly unlikely” or doubtful that children under 16 could understand the full implications of starting hormone treatments. These treatments may lead to life-changing consequences, such as the loss of fertility or impaired sexual function later in life. Keira Bell, 23, a woman who regrets starting puberty blockers at the age of 16, brought the legal action against the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, which runs the country’s only gender identity development service (GIDS) for children. The GIDS clinic, also known as the Tavistock, has seen an exodus of staff who have expressed concern that vulnerable  transgender youngsters were being set on an irreversible clinical pathway, with ou...

  Keira Bell: ‘I couldn’t sit by while so many others made the same mistake’ Her court action has led to a ruling which will make it harder for children to get puberty-blocking drugs Janic e Turner Tuesday December 01 2020, 5.00pm GMT, The Times Keira Bell: “Gender is polarised: you have to look a certain way” BETHANY CLARKE FOR THE TIMES Standing outside the High Court yesterday, Keira Bell said that she hoped the judgment marked the end of gender clinics “playing God with our bodies [by] experimenting on the young and vulnerable with untested, harmful drugs”. With her deep masculine voice, facial hair and the loss of her breasts to a double mastectomy, Bell bears on her own body the scars of irreversible treatments she began at Tavistock’s GIDS (gender identity development service) clinic at the age of 16. This quiet, reserved young woman, now 23, took on the NHS and publicly funded activist groups such as Stonewall and Mermaids — which successfully lobbied for medical interventi...