[https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/irish-doctors-concerned-those-transitioning-as-children-could-experience-significant-levels-of-regret-t7cqp6fnh](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/irish-doctors-concerned-those-transitioning-as-children-could-experience-significant-levels-of-regret-t7cqp6fnh)
27 comments
Are children surgically transitioning in Ireland?
I think they’re worried about us becoming like the UK. Tavistock (GIDS) really pushed puberty blockers instead of offering more appropriate care and we obviously don’t want the same to happen here.
>*In 2012 the HSE referred the few Irish youngsters who questioned their gender identities to the Gender Identity Development Service (Gids) at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, London.*
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>*The numbers grew and by 2015, for logistical reasons, Gids clinicians were advising at Children’s Health Ireland in Crumlin. Moran said: “Endocrinologists started noticing that these people were experiencing a lot of problems. A lot of them weren’t ready for this. Generally, what would happen is the endocrinologist would contact me saying, ‘Listen, I’ve got this kid here, we took him over from Crumlin and he looks very unwell, depressed, or he’s self-harming.’ That’s when we started to notice there’s a problem here with the assessments.”*
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>*He says that in many cases CHI Crumlin did not hold the children’s records. Where records were held, Moran and O’Shea grew alarmed.*
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>*Highlighting the “red flags”, O’Shea said life-changing decisions had been rushed. “The social situation was so chaotic that the idea that you would just jump in with hormones and start treating, without social work input, without liaising with the school, the key worker, you know, it was clearly potty,” he said.*
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>*O****’Shea added: “It is likely we will encounter significant levels of regret and other adverse outcomes in the Crumlin legacy group which will be difficult to defend.”***
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>***Moran said the concerns raised by the NHS and himself were “ignored” by Irish health authorities.***
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>*Dr Polly Carmichael, the director of Gids, said in the book that the service did not receive “direct complaints” from the NGS about quality of referrals.*
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>*The HSE said Hilary Cass, who reviewed the work of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, met Irish stakeholders in Dublin on Thursday.*
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>*It said: “The HSE is committed to developing a seamless and integrated service for those with gender identity issues.”*
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>*CHI Crumlin did not respond to requests for comment.*
I’m pro trans and accepting of how anyone wants to live their life. But kids having medical intervention at an early age in order to transition is never something I’ll be on board with.
>Former clinicians at the Gender Identity Development Service (Gids), part of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust in London, have detailed how some “incredibly complex” children were placed on medication after one face-to-face assessment, despite many having a variety of mental health or family background problems.
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>More than a third of young people referred to the service had moderate to severe autistic traits, compared with fewer than 2 per cent of children in the general population. Some identified not just as a different gender, but a different ethnic background, such as Japanese or Korean. One young person had “three different alter egos, two of whom spoke in an Australian accent”.
[https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tavistock-scandal-gender-clinic-puberty-blockers-nhs-investigation-ghrqxk8pn](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tavistock-scandal-gender-clinic-puberty-blockers-nhs-investigation-ghrqxk8pn)
Way too many people are jumping onto this issue and proudly shouting their opinions as if they are mental health professionals.
If you aren’t, you’d better be doing your research before you decide what the healthiest and most successful treatment is for people with severe dysphoria.
If you don’t know what it’s like to have that responsibility over the direction of a child’s whole future health and happiness, you should be quiet and reflect before shouting people down.
I’m not ignoring the regrets of any kids who experiment with a different gender presentation and later decide it’s not for them. But they should be weighed against the regrets of trans people who were unable to begin their transition until later in life.
The changes made by anyone who regrets transitioning should by that point be entirely reversible — transition for children means getting a different haircut, wearing different clothes, and going by a different name / pronouns. Teenagers might also have begun taking puberty blockers, to give them more time to make a decision without first putting them through the trauma of developing the “wrong” secondary sex characteristics. Again, this is completely reversible if they just stop taking them.
EDIT: okay, fine. Puberty blockers, just like *every other medication,* have a risk of side-effects. But they are generally considered safe, reversible, and have been used for the past thirty years mostly to treat kids who aren’t trans but who started puberty too young.
If you want to argue about the safety and effectiveness of puberty blockers, that’s fine. I’m not interested in joining that debate, because I’m not a doctor and I’m not qualified to evaluate the studies (and I’m willing to bet that most of you aren’t either). But whatever debate you have should be about the risks of prescribing them versus the risks of *not* prescribing them. There is no zero-risk option available.
OK well not doing so results in sky-high rates of suicide so I guess take your pick: dead kids or you having to be uncomfortable.
And also **nobody is transitioned as a child**. Puberty blockers are the most significant treatment people under 17 can get in the UK, which is where everything is happening because we’ve **no services for trans youth in Ireland.**
Edit: Jesus Christ. [Here is the National Gender Service](https://nationalgenderserviceireland.com/referral-pathway/). They do not accept patients under 17. [Here are the guidelines for GPs treating teenagers](https://www.icgp.ie/speck/properties/asset/asset.cfm?type=LibraryAsset&id=11C10660%2DB01B%2D4F35%2DB91232E649543AC1&property=asset&revision=tip&disposition=inline&app=icgp&filename=ICGP%5FTrans%5FHealth%5FQRG%5Fv%2E2%5F%5F1%5F%2Epdf), since we do not have a service for patients under 17:
>Some adolescents, under specialist review and following multidisciplinary assessment, may also consider GnRH analogues to suppress oestrogen or testosterone production (puberty blockers)
You can theoretically get a referral to a paediatric endocrinologist via GP > CAMHS > Endo:
> A detailed specialist assessment from CAMHS, a multidisciplinary gender identity development service assessment along with continuing psychosocial support are a pre-requisite to acceptance by the Paediatric Endocrinology service for consideration of gender affirming hormonal intervention
That’s it. There is NO surgical intervention for adolescents. There is only puberty blockers, and only for very few since there are no CAMHS services available.
[Research shows a 60% decrease in moderate and severe depression among trans youth who received gender-affirming care](https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/930195). Additionally, there was 73% decrease in suicidality among transgender youth and non-binary youth.
This statistically never has happened though, the amount who detransitioned is quite low. It’s never a decision that’s taken lightly, with extensive advice and monitoring from doctors during the process (obviously so nothing goes wrong), so the level of regret is low as a result.
Also, the process wouldn’t apply to literal kids like 5 year olds – in the UK for example, it’s 16. Even then, it’s stuff like puberty blockers which can be reversed (regardless on what you think on puberty blockers, they CAN be reversed), not full on reassignment surgery. Every step of the way is carefully considered and again, monitored.
All this talk against it is frankly just fearmongering because people find it uncomfortable and repulsive… for some reason.
Here we go again. There’s fuck all trans healthcare in this country but let’s just argue about it instead of helping the kids who are about to top themselves. Great.
Edit: If I seem salty it’s because the trans community are mourning our trans sister Brianna Ghey, who was murdered at the age of 16. These “debates” always forget the people who are subjected to being politicised and made examples of. RIP Brianna. 🏳️⚧️
Trans Woman here, first let me say the narrative being used is often misguided.
The level of surgical intervention is incredibly rare and most transitioning processes for children are concerned more with social transition (identity, clothing, and similar). There’s even a hesitancy to start HRT treatment like Oestrogen for children which in most cases are not significantly long term changes.
Regardless of what the far-right might say, Doctors are not chopping off parts of children because of how they identify, even as a professional adult working a very good job and having identified as Trans for several years it’s next to impossible to get surgery in Ireland.
Also, there’s this constant incorrect assumption that puberty blockers are destroying children.. They are used in many cases outside of trans children, and are reversable.. For example, say a trans boy at 12 starts puberty blockers for 4 years and decides to stop taking blockers.. Puberty doesn’t just “stop”, it will continue and the child can if needed, be given Oestrogen (The same stuff your nans are probably using) to help with puberty..
Significant amounts of regret from teens who have gone through the initial vetting for these treatments has not been seen. Nonsense article.
I looked into this as a curiosity before and the amount that regret it was almost unbelievably low – like a couple percent, and the main reason those that regret it do – being bullied by others and not the transition itself.
I’m gonna go ahead and categorise this thread in the dumpster fire folder
Well until we see the figures that’s just baseless speculation, the current detransition rate is less than .1%, and many retransition later in life.
People (in the media) keep saying “We should be worried about the regret rates”, but every single time you look into those people, they also just so happen to universally oppose trans people.
Why is a 3% regret rate considered great for side effect free cancer curing, but .1% regret rate considered disastrous for trans people? There’s a hypocrisy there, and it’s impossible to not see it when you’re unbiased.
Just checked the statistics, from what I can see, since 2012, 3, yes 3 people in the whole of Ireland have detransitioned, 2 of which were because the person died.
That’s 1 detransitioner in 10 fucking years.
Nice to see an actual debate instead of the stupid shouting from clueless British and American bots
Alternatively, trans (and non-binary) people in Ireland can’t get the medical treatments they require, so commit suicide. Happens in the UK too. Quite a bit, in fact. there’s a reason it’s all concerning.
Really sick to death of these kinds of headlines.
Exact same shit was wheeled out before repeal about abortion and so many other issues.
Fuck off and let people live their own lives.
No actual kids get medical treatment beyond puberty blockers anyway. 16 and up is the age of medical consent at which point it’s nobody’s business but the patient.
Speaking as a trans woman, who transitioned in my early 20’s. I wish I did it as early as possible as I only found the right answers to what was wrong with me after puberty and could have had a much happier time as a teenager and in school had I gotten treatment and I’m happy that that’s now a possibility for trans kids these days, however trans kids are still kids and do dumbass stuff all the time. Children even in their mid to late teens are easily influenced by online groups, their peers and online trends. I’m happy that it’s necessary to see a professional phycologist to get a diagnosis and treatment. You can’t pull the wool over their eyes and if you’re not really trans or non binary they’ll see right through that shit.
Those who do have regrets are usually people who were misguided, misdiagnosed,didn’t know what they we’re getting into and aren’t happy with the end results.
I’m afraid this topic and controversy will never die and needs to be seriously discussed.
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Everyone says “Doctors” but no one gives specifics oh who the Doctors are. Were the pediatric phycologists? Were they even just regular pediatric doctors? Or were they just some random GPs who has more or the same understanding as the average Times reader? nope ? guess they’ll just make vague statements to get clicks and drum up fear and transphobia in parents and the elderly for no reason other then the editorial personal bias Disguised as “concern for the kids”
There were some early studies undertaken which found alarmingly high levels of regret and desire to detransition in transgender people.
Like so many stories in medicine, these numbers persisted in being thrown around as fact in spite of how old they were and the absence of any confirmation studies.
More recent studies have found the rate of regret and detransitioning is now quite low and dropping all of the time.
While the original figures were largely valid, what was rarely included by those who quoted those figures was, *why.* It turned out that in almost all cases of regret or detransitioning, the individual didn’t “change their mind” or stop feeling like they were transgender. Instead, the social stigma and relationship isolation they experienced afterwards was too hard to deal with. And they wanted to go back to their assigned birth gender in order to feel safer in public and be able to return to their families and friends who had rejected them.
Likewise, I am sure if you asked any out gay person in the 1980s whether they regret coming out and if they would rather just get married, you’ll find a lot of them would have said yes.
As social acceptance of trans people keeps improving, the level of regret will continue to drop.
Funnily enough, there are also lots of parallels with abortion. Many anti-choice campaigners have quoted figures for “abortion regret” over the years as a reason to ban it. But what larger studies have found is that post-abortion regret is far higher in places where abortion is illegal or socially stigmatised, and in some cases non-existent in places where abortion is a non-issue.
So ironically the best way to reduce abortion regret (and presumably transitioning regret too) is to massively improve access to it and drive up social acceptance of it.
Google says about 2.5% of trans kids detransition by 18. Now of course the ones that would want to opt for surgery, you’d think, would be more committed/less likely to detransition? But it isn’t bigoted to care about a risk as significant as 1 in 40, maybe 1 in 50.
It seems like the medical consensus is to do social transitioning and maybe some hormones as a kid, in extreme cases do surgical transition as a teen but mostly for adults. That seems reasonable.
Sure children and teenagers have no where to go in Ireland when it comes to transitioning, CHI at Crumlin stopped taking referrals in 2021.
Isn’t this true of most major body altering surgeries. Everything from cosmetic to circumcisions
Obviously medical intervention for children is wrong- gobsmacked that people on this thread would think otherwise
Im no statistics nerd but:
A lot of pro transition people on here going on about transitioning be very hard to get access to. The same people will also say that de-transitioning rates are very low ~1%.
If medical transitioning is very difficult to get access to, then logic would dictate that the only people who successfully get access to transition meds/surgery are the people who most zealously believed they were born in the wrong body.These people will have stopped at nothing and have jumped over every hurdle possible to achieve what they wanted (a ‘successful’ medical transition).
Consequently, in any de-transition data collected from this cohort, there’s is going to be a strong bias toward their initial transition being the correct choice. De-transitioning rates are going to be inherently low in this cohort. As the ‘convoluted’ process to enable transition weeded out any confused, unmotivated trans folk- folk who wernt so sure in their convictions that they persevered through all the bureaucracy/cost/ time /stigma of going thru the transition.
Logically one would assume that It is this latter cohort (the unsure folk) who are most likely be regretful or de-transition in the future.
Naturally, as these people never ‘cared enough’ about transitioning to get any surgery or meds, they aren’t going to be in any of the data pertaining to *medically transition trans* people (specifically that pertaining to de-transition/ regret rates).
Alternatively if the entire process is made much easier, medically, legally culturally then there are way less hurdles and stigma to overcome when you decide to transition. Therefore decisions are more likely to be made in haste. Perhaps flippantly.
Therefore, I can only imagine that if medical transitioning access is made much easier, de-transitioning/regret rates in such a scenario would ultimately be much, much higher. This would stem from the removal of the aforementioned ‘weeding out’ processes, which would otherwise have hindered/ stopped a lot of ‘unsure trans folk’ from the medical transition pathway. If access is easier these people may ‘slip through the net’ and end up making permanent life changing decisions which they (the unsure folk) are *more likely* to regret in the future.