The NHS is hitting the brakes hard on the transgender social contagion — to the point that it has discouraged puberty-blocking and social gender affirmation. From the Telegraph story:
The proposals say that the new clinical approach will for younger children “reflect evidence that in most cases gender incongruence does not persist into adolescence” and doctors should be mindful this might be a “transient phase”.
Instead of encouraging transition, medics should take “a watchful approach” to see how a young person’s conditions develop, the plans state.
When a prepubescent child has already socially transitioned, “the clinical approach has to be mindful of the risks of an inappropriate gender transition and the difficulties that the child may experience in returning to the original gender role upon entering puberty if the gender incongruence does not persist”.
For adolescents, social transition will only be considered when it is necessary for preventing “clinically significant distress” and when a young person “is able to fully comprehend the implications of affirming a social transition”, says NHS England.
That’s quite a pullback.
Why do I think the transgender phenomenon in children is a social contagion, much as suicide can be?
The public consultation documents say that change is necessary against a backdrop of a sharp rise in referrals to the gender identity service, from just under 250 in 2011-12 to over 5,000 last year.
In recent years there has also been a spike, with “the number of referrals currently at 8.7 per 100,000 population per year in 2021-22 compared to four per 100,000 in 2020-21 and 4.5 per 100,000 in 2019-20”.
Europe is pushing back against ideological “gender-affirming care” and permanently altering the bodies of children and adolescents — as Joe Biden goes all in on the transgender ideological agenda. This should be an election issue.