Thread by @TransActualUK

Today @thetimes continues its misinformation campaign about trans people, specifically trans kids (4 articles).

Here we go again:
1. The Gender Identity Development Service require parental consent to treat under 16s. (1/9)

2. The wait for treatment from the Gender Identity Development service is 2 years. After that the assessment process is lengthy.
3. Some kids might explore their identity & conclude that they're not trans. That's what the assessment process is for. (2/9)

4. After the lengthy assessment process, young people might get blockers if that's what's right for them & if they've started puberty. (3/9)

4. For over 30 years, puberty blockers have been safely used to delay precocious puberty in non-trans children aged 6 to 12 years. Trans youth receive them at the onset of puberty and often for shorter lengths of time. (4/9)
rd.springer.com/article/10.216…

5. Hormone treatment is only given by the NHS once a trans young person reaches 16 and has been on hormone blockers for at least a year.
6. Transition related surgery is only available to over 18s in the UK (5/9)
gids.nhs.uk/puberty-and-ph…

7. Socially transitioned trans children who are supported in their gender identity have developmentally normative levels of depression and only minimal elevations in anxiety...socially transitioned transgender children have notably lower rates of internalizing psychopathology

pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/…
(7/9)

8. “suspension of puberty is not only not unethical: if it is likely to improve the child’s quality of life and even save his or her life, then it is indeed unethical to defer treatment.” Dr S. Giordano, Journal of Medical Ethics 2008 jme.bmj.com/content/34/8/5…
(8/9)

9. Some autistic people are trans. Get over it.
(9/9)