Thread by @DadTrans

CW suicide:

Jayden Lowe died on 22/11/2018 after 11 months on the waitlist for the monopoly transgender children's gender service. 7 months on he would still be waiting. The wait is now 21 months & still rising. Some of our kids will never get there. #NHSfailingtranskids

https://twitter.com/junodawson/status/1112036457517121536

Imagine if in September 2018, Jayden had reached the @NHSEngland service, they still would not have given any immediate medical treatment. They would not have offered bridging hormones, instead they would have reported him & his parents to social services for self medicating. 2/

@NHSEngland If not ejected from service, Jayden would have suffered more waiting during an assessment of minimum 3-6 to establish eligibility access hormone blockers. If already through puberty, blockers would create a medically induced menapause, extremely distressing as a 17 year old 3/

@NHSEngland In the children's service, Jayden would have been forced to endure 12 months on blockers before eligibility & a further wait to acess gender affirmative hormones (testosterone). Putting a 15, 16 or 17 year old trans boy on hormone blockers alone without HRT risks harm 4/

@NHSEngland The 22 month wait list is horrendous & trans youth are dying while they are waiting, but getting to the end of the waitlist is not some nirvana. The rigid protocol on arrival & a further 2 year wait for hormones is dangerous risking further harm on a extremely vulnerable group 5/

@NHSEngland On Friday at #TransHealthConf2019 I watched the 2 most senior clinicians of the children's service defend their practice of delayed transition. They are not medical doctors. They talked about their fears of media attention of giving any form of medication to transgender youth 6/

@NHSEngland The talked about being "caught between 2 sides". The trans adolescent wanting hormones to develop in their right gender on 1 side, & society fuelled by a hostile media wanting the service shut down on the other. I watched in disbelief 7/

Is there any other area of the NHS where this happens? Anti-Vaccers influencing vaccination policy, anti Chemo groups impacting access to cancer therapies, anti abortionists preventing access to the morning after pill & terminations. Not any more. But there, for trans health 8/

The director of the service (who has been in charge for 10 years), told us that it was a very "complex social environment", that "all sides" needed to be taken into account. That they needed to be "cautious". Also on the panel was Jo Olson Kennedy, a paediatrician from the USA 9/

Olson Kennedy is Medical Director of The Center for Transyouth Health & Development at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, the largest transgender youth clinic in the United States, & the second largest in the world. Olson Kennedy, said that "doing nothing was not cautious" 10/

The Gender Affirmative approach widely used in the USA, Canada, Spain, Australia, centres the child & their individual needs. That might be blockers & hormones, or it might be some guidance on allowing exploration of gender ("some kids just need a dress & a handbag") 11/

Olson Kennedy places the needs of the child at the centre of that decision making process of what interventions (social, medical) are right, but takes as read the stated gender "I think it's weird that someone would know your gender better than you. I just think that's odd". 12/

Carmicahel & Wren, the UK gender service psychologists made it clear they want to be in control of the decision on whether to affirm a child's gender identity. As Jay Stewart of @Genderintell called out "It's their decision, not yours". 13/

Today is #TransDayOfVisibility it is also #MothersDay. There's one mum without a son today. I hope for a revolution in UK trans health care. I hope instead of focusing on hypothetical risks emphasised by a trans hostile media we focus on the real risk to youth like Jayden 14/

Suicide is complex & multi factoral with rarely one reason.
If you are having suicidal thoughts there is help available right now:
Samaritans - 116 123
Papyrus - 0800 068 41 41 (Text 07786 209697)
Childline - 0800 1111 (the number won't show up on your phone bill) 15/

Jayden Lowe's local school held a memorial Rugby match for @MindCharity to donate to Mind go to: mind.org.uk/donate END/