Earlier this year, The Telegraph (UK) reported, “The number of children being referred to gender identity clinics has quadrupled in five years.” In 2012/13 a total of 20 children, between the ages of 3 and 7, were referred to the Gender Identity Development Services (GIDS), a facility for transgender children. In 2016 that number rose to 84. Referrals for children under the age of 10 also increased from 35 in 2012/13 to 165 in 2016.
Over all, there was a staggering total of 2,016 referrals for children aged between 3 and 18. That’s over six times more than the 314 referrals five years earlier. Here’s a breakdown:
2012/13: 3 to 7-years – 20 referrals
2016: 3 to 7-years – 84 referrals (+64)2012/13: 10-years and younger – 35 referrals
2016: 10-years and younger – 165 referrals (+130)2012/13: 3 to 18-years – 314 referrals
2016: 3 to 18-years – 2,016 referrals (+1,702)
The Sandyford Clinic in Glasgow, Scotland, has witness a similar increase, and reported a 300% rise in referrals in less than five years.1
So, what could be causing the drastic rise of gender confusion in children? Could these figures be the result of transgender issues now being promoted in schools? Just this month, Theresa May, U.K. Prime Minister, vowed to make sex-education in English schools LGBTQ-inclusive, stating:
“We need to keep up our action, so we are pressing ahead with inclusive relationships and sex education in English schools, making sure that LGBT issues are taught well. We’re determined to eradicate homophobic and transphobic bullying… We have set out plans to reform the Gender Recognition Act and streamline and de-medicalise the process for changing gender, because being trans is not an illness and it shouldn’t be treated as such.”2
Dr Paul McHugh, former head of psychiatry at John Hopkins University, has argued 70-80% of all children with transgender feelings grow out of it. Dr McHugh went on to say, “policy makers and the media are doing no favors either to the public or the transgendered by treating their confusions as a right in need of defending rather than as a mental disorder that deserves understanding, treatment and prevention.” Chris McGovern, a former advisor to the Department for Education in the U.K., told the Telegraph:
“It has become an industry, people are making a career out of encouraging children to question gender at an age when they need to be left to be children. When teachers raise these issues children can become confused or unhappy and traumatised by it.”3
No doubt we can expect similar results in Australia, thanks to the Safe Schools Coalition.
References:
- Treatments for gender identity issues among Scottish children are soaring
- The Telegraph (UK): Theresa May vows to ‘streamline’ process for changing gender as she says ‘being trans is not an illness’
- The Telegraph (UK): Number of children being referred to gender identity clinics has quadrupled in five years
