| Formation | 1989 |
|---|---|
| Legal status | Closed (28 March 2024) |
| Purpose | Gender identity services for under 18s |
| Headquarters | Tavistock Centre |
| Location |
|
Director | Polly Carmichael |
Parent organisation | Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust |
| Affiliations | Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology and NHS England |
| Website | gids |
The Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) was a nationally operated health clinic in the United Kingdom that specialised in working with children with gender identity issues, including gender dysphoria.The service closed on 28 March 2024 after serious concerns were repeatedly raised over a number of years by several independent NHS whistleblowers. [1]
Launched in 1989, GIDS was commissioned by NHS England and took referrals from across the UK, although it was operated at a Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust site. GIDS was the only gender identity clinic for people under 18 in England and Wales and was the subject of much controversy. In July 2022, the NHS decided to close GIDS and replace it with regional healthcare centres, following the release of an interim report on the provision of gender identity services for children and adolescents conducted by paediatrician Hilary Cass. [2]
GIDS is a service provided by the Tavistock Clinic. Originally located at Tavistock Square in London, the clinic specialised in psychiatric care. The Tavistock Clinic treated both adults and children, with their first patient being a child. However, it mainly focused on military psychology, including shell-shock, now termed PTSD. In 1948, with the creation of the NHS, the Tavistock Clinic launched its children's department, which developed many works by Robertson and Bowlby on attachment theory. [3] In 1959, it opened an adolescent department and in 1967 it was absorbed into the London Child Guidance Clinic. [4] The Tavistock Clinic established GIDS in 1989. [5] GIDS was founded by Domenico Di Ceglie, a child and adolescent psychiatrist. [2]
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) provides the NHS support for children with mental health issues. However, CAMHS is organised by local government area and thus coverage varies significantly. The development of CAMHS within a four-tiered framework started in 1995. In 2000 the NHS Plan Implementation Programme required health and local authorities to jointly produce a local CAMHS strategy.
GIDS takes referrals from all mental health care professionals, especially Tier 2 and 3 CAMHS specialists. GIDS is distinct from CAMHS as is it is nationally run, not by the local authority. However, in the CAMHS framework it sits in Tier 4, as a highly specialised service. [6]
In 1989 when the GIDS opened, "it got two referrals over the whole year." [7]
In 2009–10, 97 patients were referred to GIDS. By 2015–16, this had increased fourteen-fold to 1,419 and in 2017–18 to 2,519. Due to reduced funding and increased referrals, the average wait time is two years from referral to first appointment. [8] [9]
In 2010–11, the GIDS lowered the age of prescription for the puberty blocker drug from 15 to 10 years old after facing pressure from activists and from people may have otherwise travelled to America or Holland to obtain the drug. [7] [10]
In 2012, the service was extended to a satellite site in Leeds. Endocrine support was also extended to Leeds Children's Hospital at the Leeds General Infirmary site in 2013. [11]
In 2016, the waiting list for the clinic had increased to nine months. [7]
In 2016, the clinic was the subject of a Channel 4 documentary programme, told from the point of view of two satisfied trans children and their families. [7]
In November 2018, the parents of patients complained in a letter to the Trust board about the alacrity at which diagnoses were rendered, leaving them unable to intervene in these "life-altering decisions". [12] This led to the commissioning of an internal report by Dr David Bell, which concluded in February 2019 that the service was "not fit for purpose", as children were being prescribed experimental drugs "after a few sessions and without proper investigation of their cases[...] under pressure from transgender rights groups". Bell urged the suspension of "all experimental hormone treatment for children who wished to change gender until there was better evidence of the outcomes." [13] Dr Marcus Evans, a member of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust governance board, resigned that week after a 35-year association with Tavistock and Portman. He accused its management of having an "overvalued belief in" the expertise of GIDS, "which is used to dismiss challenge and examination." [14]
Subsequent to the Bell report it was revealed that 35 psychologists had resigned since 2016, including six psychologists who claimed there was "over-diagnosis" of gender dysphoria and a push for early medical intervention, [15] because "psychologists fear being branded transphobic." [16]
In February 2019, it was revealed that the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) had announced a £1.3 million grant for a study following young people referred to GIDS, to compare mental and physical health outcomes for children referred. The study was to compare the effectiveness of different interventions, including psychological, endocrinological, pharmaceutical and alternative interventions. [14]
In July 2019, the Tavistock Centre was flooded, which temporarily affected the IT servers at the clinic. [17]
In October 2019, a lawsuit was launched against GIDS by the mother of a patient at GIDS and Sue Evans, a nurse who formerly worked there. [18] Later, Evans passed their role as complainant to Keira Bell, a previous service user and detransitioner. In December 2020 following the High Court judgement, GIDS suspended all new referrals to endocrinology. The Court granted a stay on further implementation of the judgement until 22 December 2020 or until appeals are exhausted. [19] The judgment was overturned by the Court of Appeal in 2021. [20]
In December 2020 Dr Bell, a former governor of the Trust who was elected by the medical staff and who had produced in February 2019 a report on the methods of the GIDS, reported that he now faced "disciplinary action" from the Trust. [13] The threats to take disciplinary action lapsed when Dr Bell retired in 2021. [21]
Dr Polly Carmichael, a consultant clinical psychologist, led the GIDS since at least 2016. [7] [22] [23]
Services provided include: [24] [25]
No surgical transition options are available through GIDS. [24]
People referred to GIDS may also contribute to NIHR studies into gender dysphoria in children. [14]
In the financial year 2018–19, 31 referrals were made for children aged 5 or under. 30 referrals were made for adults over the age of 18. In 2018–19, there was a year-on-year increase of 6%, a relative plateau compared to previous year-on-year increases. [9] Similarly, there was only a 0.1% increase in referrals between the 18–19 and 19–20 financial years. [26]
| Financial year | Referrals made |
|---|---|
| 2009/2010 [9] | 77 |
| 2010/2011 [9] | 138 |
| 2011/2012 [9] | 209 |
| 2012/2013 [9] | 309 |
| 2013/2014 [9] | 471 |
| 2014/2015 [9] | 678 |
| 2015/2016 [26] | 1,408 |
| 2016/2017 [26] | 1,977 |
| 2017/2018 [26] | 2,554 |
| 2018/2019 [26] | 2,725 |
| 2019/2020 [26] | 2,728 |
| Assigned female at birth | Assigned male at birth | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09/10 | 32 | 40 | |||
| 10/11 | 57 | 75 | |||
| 11/12 | 106 | 87 | |||
| 12/13 | 169 | 111 | |||
| 13/14 | 257 | 180 | |||
| 14/15 | 399 | 250 | |||
| 15/16 | 852 | 433 | |||
| 16/17 | 1,265 | 542 | |||
| 17/18 | 1,657 | 624 | |||
| 18/19 | 1,740 | 624 | |||
| 19/20 [26] | 1,981 | 720 |
More than 5,000 children were referred there in 2021, a 20-fold increase over the previous decade, leading to "unacceptable" waiting lists. [27]
Children who present to GIDS may identify with a number of different labels, including non-binary, transgender, genderqueer, questioning or otherwise as simply dysphoric or gender non-conforming. GIDS say that the way children identify is changing, which may be due to cultural and societal shifts. [28]
As the only gender identity clinic for children in England and Wales, GIDS has been the subject of much controversy related to the broader topic of gender dysphoria and transitioning in childhood. [28]
A 2019 Sky News report found that 35 psychologists resigned between 2016 and 2019. Six psychologists who resigned raised concerns about the over-diagnosis and medicalisation of young people experiencing gender identity difficulties. In February 2019, Tavistock trust member Marcus Evans resigned, citing similar concerns. [15] [16] In July 2019, Kirsty Entwistle wrote a public letter about the GIDS service, saying professionals were often labelled "transphobic" if they raised doubts. [29] Clinicians have stated that concerns over children's welfare were "shut down". [30]
Following a letter to the board at Tavistock, an internal report was commissioned to look at the functioning of GIDS. [12] Dr David Bell authored the report which found that the service was "not fit for purpose". It considered that the service could result in "damaging consequences" to children's lives and failed to fully consider a child's mental health background. [14] However, it did not identify any "immediate" issues with regards to safety and in 2018 the Care Quality Commission (CQC) rated the effectiveness of the Trust as "outstanding". [31]
Conversely, there is a long wait time for a first appointment at GIDS, averaging at two years as of January 2020. GIDS blame high referral numbers and low staff numbers for this wait time. [32]
In October 2019, a legal complaint was lodged against GIDS at its satellite site in Leeds. The suit was brought by "Mrs. A", a mother of a 15-year-old patient with autism, and Sue Evans, a former nurse at the Leeds GIDS satellite site. It alleges that advice around hormone therapy was "potentially misleading" and that true informed consent could not be given under such circumstances. The suit describes hormone therapy as "experimental" and states that there is "robust evidence" to show long-lasting medical effects of hormone therapy. [18] Some time after January 2020, Evans passed on her role as complainant to Keira Bell "who was prescribed puberty blockers by GIDS when she was 16. She had a double mastectomy aged 20, and now regrets transitioning, which has left her with 'no breasts, a deep voice, body hair, a beard, affected sexual function and who knows what else that has not been discovered'. She may well be infertile as a side effect of the drugs." [33] In a judgment delivered on 1 December 2020, the judges said that it was "highly unlikely that a child aged 13 or less would be competent to give consent to the administration of puberty blockers", and that it was "doubtful that 14 or 15 year olds could understand the long-term risks and consequences" of this form of treatment. Where the young person is 16 or over, "we recognise that clinicians may well regard these as cases where the authorisation of the court should be sought prior to commencing the clinical treatment." [34] The judges also criticised GIDS for failing to publish a 2011 study relating to puberty blockers. [10] Immediately following the High Court judgement, GIDS suspended all new referrals to endocrinology. The Court granted a stay on further implementation of the judgement until 22 December 2020 or until the appeal process was complete, whichever was later. [19] Amnesty International and Liberty issued a joint statement emphasising their concern on "the wider implications this will have on the rights of children and young people of all genders, particularly on consent and bodily autonomy." [35] Consortium issued a statement stating that the ruling "could have a potentially devastating impact on young people seeking access to medical services." [36] Leave to appeal against the decision of the High Court was granted in January 2021. [37] The appeal was heard on 23 and 24 June 2021. [38] [39]
In September 2021, the Court of Appeal overturned the judgment of the High Court and once again allowed people under 16 to consent to receiving puberty blockers. [20]
The RCGP report on transgender healthcare in the UK found several flaws in the NHS approach. It called for a "whole system" change, including addressing waiting times and the lack of research around gender dysphoria in children. [40] The report noted the expansion of gender identity services into all four UK nations and "welcomes the forthcoming postgraduate diploma in Gender Identity Healthcare Practice". The report also noted that "in England, for example, GICs have seen a 240% overall increase in referrals over five years, with referrals to the Tavistock and Portman clinic alone increasing 8.43% between March 2018-19." [40]
In July 2020, it was reported that Sonia Appleby, the "Named Professional for Safeguarding Children" at the gender identity clinic, had been in dispute with her employers since November 2019. [41]
In September 2021, it was reported that Appleby was awarded £20,000 by an employment tribunal because the NHS's Tavistock and Portman trust's treatment of her damaged her professional reputation and "prevented her from proper work on safeguarding". [42] [43] The trust will not be lodging an appeal. [44]
Academics Judith Suissa and Alice Sullivan listed her alongside Allison Bailey, Maya Forstater, and J. K. Rowling as women who have experienced campaigns of harassment because they speak publicly on sex and gender identity. [45]
In 2020, due to a significant rise in the number of referrals to the Gender Identity Development Service, NHS England and NHS Improvement commissioned paediatrician and former President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health Hilary Cass to lead a review into gender identity services for children and young people. [46] [47]
The interim Cass report had found the clinic's model to be "neither safe nor viable" due to its lengthy waiting periods, which were deemed "unacceptable", [48] as well as its overshadowing of mental health issues other than gender identity. On 28 July 2022, the NHS decided to close GIDS and replace it with regional healthcare centres, following the publication of the review. [49] [2] The regional centres are intended to provide more "holistic care", linking to other mental health services. [50] Two of them were to be established by spring 2023—one at the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London and another under a partnership between the Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool and the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital. Minors being considered for hormone treatment would be followed until adulthood as part of formal clinical trials. [27] In May 2023, it was announced that the closure would be delayed until 2024, as the replacement facilities are taking longer than expected to prepare. [51]
In response to the decision, Susie Green, then CEO of Mermaids, a campaign group for youth who question their gender, was "cautiously optimistic", but expressed concerns that priority would be given to mental health over medical care, saying that gender diversity should not be treated as a mental disorder. [52]
In February 2023, documentary journalist Hannah Barnes published a book on GIDS, titled Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock's Gender Service for Children . [53] Barnes describes the work saying, "I wanted to write a definitive record of what happened [at GIDS] because there needs to be one." [54]
Gender dysphoria (GD) is the distress a person experiences due to a mismatch between their gender identity—their personal sense of their own gender—and their sex assigned at birth. The term replaced the previous diagnostic label of gender identity disorder (GID) in 2013 with the release of the diagnostic manual DSM-5. The condition was renamed to remove the stigma associated with the term disorder.
The Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People (SOC) is an international clinical protocol by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) outlining the recommended assessment and treatment for transgender and gender-diverse individuals across the lifespan including social, hormonal, or surgical transition. It often influences clinicians' decisions regarding patients' treatment. While other standards, protocols, and guidelines exist – especially outside the United States – the WPATH SOC is the most widespread protocol used by professionals working with transgender or gender-variant people.
The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust is a specialist mental health trust based in north London. The Trust specialises in talking therapies. The education and training department caters for 2,000 students a year from the United Kingdom and abroad. The Trust is based at the Tavistock Centre in Swiss Cottage. The founding organisation was the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology founded in 1920 by Hugh Crichton-Miller.
Gender dysphoria in children (GD), also known as gender incongruence of childhood, is a formal diagnosis for children who experience significant discontent due to a mismatch between their assigned sex and gender identity. The diagnostic label gender identity disorder in children (GIDC) was used by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) until it was renamed gender dysphoria in children in 2013 with the release of the DSM-5. The diagnosis was renamed to remove the stigma associated with the term disorder.
Kenneth J. Zucker is an American-Canadian psychologist and sexologist. He was named editor-in-chief of Archives of Sexual Behavior in 2001. He was psychologist-in-chief at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and head of its Gender Identity Service until December 2015. Zucker is a professor in the departments of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Toronto.
Transgender youth are children or adolescents who do not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth. Because transgender youth are usually dependent on their parents for care, shelter, financial support, and other needs, they differ in challenges compared to adults. According to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, appropriate care for transgender youth may include supportive mental health care, social transition, and/or puberty blockers, which delay puberty and the development of secondary sex characteristics to allow children more time to explore their gender identity.
Puberty blockers are medicines used to postpone puberty in children. The most commonly used puberty blockers are gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists, which suppress the natural production of sex hormones, such as androgens and estrogens. In addition to their use in treating precocious puberty, which involves puberty occurring at an unusually early age in children, puberty blockers are also used for transgender children to delay the development of unwanted sex characteristics, so as to allow transgender youth more time to explore their gender identity.
Transgender hormone therapy, also called hormone replacement therapy (HRT) or gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT), is a form of hormone therapy in which sex hormones and other hormonal medications are administered to transgender or gender nonconforming individuals for the purpose of more closely aligning their secondary sexual characteristics with their gender identity. This form of hormone therapy is given as one of two types, based on whether the goal of treatment is masculinization or feminization:
Transgender health care includes the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of physical and mental health conditions, as well as gender-affirming care, for transgender individuals. A major component of transgender health care is gender-affirming care, the medical aspect of gender transition. Questions implicated in transgender health care include gender variance, sex reassignment therapy, health risks, and access to healthcare for trans people in different countries around the world.
Transgender rights in the United Kingdom have varied significantly over time, with transgender Britons facing certain social challenges not experienced by non-trans individuals. These include various laws and public attitudes in regards to identity documents, as well as anti-discrimination measures used by or pertaining to transgender people, in the areas of employment, education, housing and social services, amongst others.
Detransition is the cessation or reversal of a transgender identification or of gender transition, temporarily or permanently, through social, legal, and/or medical means. The term is distinct from the concept of 'regret', and the decision may be based on a shift in gender identity, or other reasons, such as health concerns, social pressure, or discrimination and stigma.
Debra W. Soh is a Canadian columnist, author, and former academic sex researcher.
Mermaids is a British charity and advocacy organisation that supports gender variant and transgender youth. It also provides inclusion and diversity training. Mermaids was founded in 1995 by a group of parents of gender nonconforming children and became a charitable incorporated organisation in 2015.
A gender identity clinic is a type of specialist clinic providing services relating to transgender health care.
Bell v Tavistock was a case before the Court of Appeal on the question of whether puberty blockers could be prescribed to under-16s with gender dysphoria. The Court of Appeal said that "it was for clinicians rather than the court to decide on competence" to consent to receive puberty blockers.
Transgender Trend is an anti-trans British pressure group, which describes itself as a group of parents, professionals and academics who are concerned about the number of children diagnosed with gender dysphoria. It was founded in 2015 by Stephanie Davies-Arai.
Genspect is an international group founded in June 2021 by psychotherapist Stella O'Malley that has been described as gender-critical. Genspect opposes gender-affirming care, as well as social and medical transition for transgender people. Genspect opposes allowing transgender people under 25 years old to transition, and opposes laws that would ban conversion therapy on the basis of gender identity. Genspect also endorses the unproven concept of rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD), which proposes a subclass of gender dysphoria caused by peer influence and social contagion. ROGD has been rejected by major medical organisations due to its lack of evidence and likelihood to cause harm by stigmatizing gender-affirming care.
Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock's Gender Service for Children is a 2023 nonfiction book by BBC Newsnight investigative journalist Hannah Barnes. The book is about the NHS Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) based at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. Barnes said, "I wanted to write a definitive record of what happened [at GIDS] because there needs to be one."
GenderGP is an online gender clinic founded in 2015 by English physicians Helen Webberley and Mike Webberley. It is based in Singapore but provides services worldwide. It has been the subject of controversy within the United Kingdom as a result of regulatory actions taken against its founders, where it is the only private-sector provider of health care to transgender youth.
The Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People was commissioned in 2020 by NHS England and NHS Improvement and led by Hilary Cass, a retired consultant paediatrician and the former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. It dealt with gender services for children and young people, including those with gender dysphoria and those identifying as transgender.
