The British High Court has ruled that an autistic trans teenager must not be prescribed hormones. The ruling came on the back of a legal challenge, mounted by the child’s father, after the teen was put on cross-sex hormones by an overseas private health clinic, even though the teenage girl had just had one online appointment.
The case, which has been described as potentially landmark, involved a 16-year-old, identified only as ‘J,’ was put on cross sex-hormones aged 15 by Gender GP, an online transgender clinic founded in 2015 by English physicians Helen Webberley and Mike Webberley.
The Singapore-based clinic provides services worldwide, and has sparked controversy within the UK due to regulatory actions taken against its founders. The child was prescribed the hormones after one single online appointment with the counsellor.
On its website, Gender GP says it provides services to “start or continue your transition, access advice and support from our directory of healthcare professionals from all over the world.”
“Use our digital platform to get the advice and support you need to be the real you,” the private clinic says, adding: “We aim to provide trans and non-binary people with support and care and recommendations to help them live their best lives, especially when considering medical transition – either with puberty blockers or hormones.”
In its judgement, the High Court said that a child accessing testosterone from an “off-shore, online, unregulated private clinic” presented “serious concerns as to the safety of patients.” The court ruled that the teenager must no longer receive hormones from Gender GP.
Evidence presented in court by experts unveiled a litany of safety issues including the child being prescribed what was deemed a “dangerously high” dose of testosterone to a child born female, which left them ‘at risk of imminent death.”
The Daily Telegraph Newspaper, covering the case, reports that the teen was born female but identifies as male, and has self-harmed and suffered from eating disorders.
The court heard that the child was detained in a children’s mental health unit for a period of nine months, and was diagnosed with autism and anorexia aged 13.
Lawyer Paul Conrathe, representing the child’s father, said the litigation had “exposed a dangerous gap in NHS provision which urgently needs to be remedied.”
The Secretary of State should immediately seek to prevent vulnerable children from accessing powerful life-changing hormonal medication from unregulated providers, Mr Conrathe said.
“Despite the child being significantly overdosed with testosterone and there being concerns about the risk of sudden death due to thromboembolic disease, there was no gender emergency service nationally that could offer urgent assessment and treatment other than basic blood testing,” the lawyer at Sinclairs Law said.
A consultant paediatric endocrinologist, Dr Jacqueline Hewitt, was the court’s expert witness, and had travelled from Melbourne, Australia, after no UK specialists agreed to take part.
Giving evidence, Dr Hewitt was critical of the lack of physical examinations, therapy, bone density checks, and the “extremely poor quality” of psychological assessment provided by Gender GP. She said her biggest concern was the clinic’s administration of “dangerously high” doses of testosterone to a child taking the hormone for the first time.
“No professional society of paediatric endocrinologists internationally who would consider this anything other than a highly abnormal and frankly negligent approach,” Dr Hewitt said, as reported in The Telegraph – adding that such practise would be “unlawful” in Australia.
The outcome of the case coincides with recent polling which found that the majority of Britons want clinics offering gender reassignment to under 18s shut down.
The poll of 2000 adults, commissioned by campaign group Family Hubs Network, found that some 61 per cent of people believe clinics should close, compared with 17 per cent who disagree.
A further 68 per cent of those surveyed said that puberty blockers should never be prescribed to teenagers, while 79 per cent said teens should never be offered surgery. In addition, nearly half of those who took part in the polling – 46 per cent – said they believed JK Rowling is a “brave critic of trans ideology.”