We waited some weeks for the BBC to be ready to cover our legal action to protect the legal rights of trans children. And the piece is up and is quite extraordinary. I'm not going to link to it because it is inaccurate and gives space to a transphobic hate group.
First point. One of the real problems bedevilling trans teenagers is ignorance. So if you believe the media you're like some foie gras goose having pills forced down your throat and a crazed surgeon chopping away at six year olds.
However the stages of treatment are below. This case is about accessing psychological evaluation. That precedes fully reversible puberty blockers. You can't have partially reversible cross-sex hormones until you are sixteen and surgery until eighteen plus. gids.nhs.uk/puberty-and-ph…
I spent some time explaining this - when asked "is there anything else you'd like to raise" - so it is odd at best that the BBC has described it as "gender reasignment" treatment (the treatment for sixteen year olds). I thought the BBC's job was to inform not misinform? 
The second point is that the piece ignores why accessing puberty blockers is urgent. If you don't have the breathing space of puberty blockers your body changes - your adam's apple might drop and your voice change - in ways that are difficult or impossible to reverse later.
I made - and Reece made - this point very carefully. If you hang around for years on a waiting list without the suspensory effect of reversible puberty blockers you are most likely (few teenagers detransition) creating pointless scarring and an unnecessary need for extra surgery.
The BBC has entirely ignored this vital point. Indeed it has quoted an anonymous psychotherapist (not even a doctor) saying long waiting times could be a good thing. Utterly remarkable and quite at odds with worldwide treatment protocols that have existed since the 1970s.
The third point is they have quoted the so-called LGB Alliance - a dark money funded astro-turfed hate group - on the healthcare of trans teenagers. What next? Will the BBC be quoting white supremacists on whether sickle cell anaemia should be treated on the NHS?
The BBC also ignores what lengthy waiting lists mean for trans kids and teenagers. The evidence shows failing to affirm trans kids or teenagers with (fully reversible) puberty blockers is correlated with increased suicide risk. I made that point clearly. The BBC has ignored it.
Waiting lists of up to four years are a deprivation of a time sensitive treatment. They are like a six month waiting list for an abortion. They have serious physical and mental effects on those on them and they are unlawful. We will bring, and I believe win, our legal case.
England is a country in which the medical treatment of trans kids and teenagers has become a political battleground. Not for their doctor and them to make decisions based on the evidence but for the ignorant and politically motivated to seek to impose their views from afar.
Our media is where Russia is with being gay: to be trans is to be mentally ill, to have been led into bad ways by propaganda, or a lifestyle choice. These assumptions underlie much of our coverage and permeate how we talk and think about being trans. They are shameful and wrong.
Trans people have the same rights as anyone else, including the right to treatment on the NHS. You can support our case to protect trans rights here. crowdjustice.com/case/transgend…
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