Children as young as 11 are being offered hormone treatments to change gender

Children as young as 11 are receiving hormone treatment in order to be able to change gender.

As reported by The Sunday Times, a psychologist at the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) clinic in London, is warning that the decision to suppress puberty could have consequences including infertility.

Bernadette Wren, consultant clinical psychologist at the only NHS clinic in England and Wales for children seeking to change their gender, said some schools could be moving too fast in labelling children transgender.

She said that many schools were rushing to treat children as a member of the opposite sex from they moment they heard a rumour they could be questioning their identity.

In nine months last year more than 2,000 children were referred by GPs, schools and support groups to GIDS.

Figures revealed in October last year showed that children as young as four were among the 50 children a week being referred to gender reassignment specialists.

Fifty-five of those referred last year were aged between three and six years old.

Dr Wren said that 10% of children who attend GIDS opt out of their treatment programme.

She told the Times that schools should hold fire on allowing gender-fluid children to swap uniforms, toilets and pronouns without their parents’ permission.

“In the younger age group we may get kids who are gender fluid but not going to pursue this into later life,” she added.

“Schools might wait for the parents to approach them before changing things like names in the register, uniforms, pronouns, toilets, sports.”

Issues surrounding gender and school uniform have been making headlines recently. Many schools across the UK have already implemented gender neutral uniforms.

And back in September, a mum turned to the Internet to ask why all school uniforms weren’t gender neutral.

Meanwhile, a secondary school headteacher sparked outrage last year by allegedly telling female students they should only wear leggings to school if they’re a size zero or two (a size four and six in the UK).

And boys at Exeter’s ISCA Academy recently wore skirts to protest the school’s no-shorts rule during a heatwave, while a four-year-old boy’s mum was shocked to have him sent home for his long hair in Texas.

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