(ZENIT News – SIR / Rome, 10.04.2024).- The news was on the front pages of British newspapers, from the progressive “The Guardian” to the conservative “The Telegraph,” and online sites, from the BBC to the “Daily Mail” tabloid. After four years, the renowned paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass, former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, concluded her research on how the United Kingdom’s Health Service and, in particular, London’s Tavistock Clinic, treated children with doubts about their sexual identity, often allowing them to change their sex too easily.
The expert’s conclusion is “failure.” The clinics and experts were mistaken in their approach because: ‘There are no scientific reasons to proceed to sex change when we are talking about a youth younger than 25 years.’ The conclusions of the 388-page study also point out that: “Medicine concerned with sex change is built on an insecure foundation.”
The Report on sex change, signed by paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass, has 32 recommendations, the most important of which are addressed to doctors and specialists who are urged to proceed with “extreme caution” to a request for sex change, as the brain as well as sexual identity continue developing up to 25 years of age.
“It used to be thought that brain maturation finished in adolescence, but it is now understood that this remodelling continues into the mid-20s as different parts become more interconnected and specialised,” the Report notes.
The research included interviews with hundreds of young people, both those that completed the process of gender reassignment (through hormonal therapies , aesthetic surgery, psychological support) as well as those that, once the process of gender affirmation was initiated or completed, decided to interrupt or reverse it to return to their original gender. Among the former, many regretted their choice when it was already too late.
According to Dr Cass, thousands of children didn’t have access to proper advice and changed their gender without due awareness. In her Report she urges, in the first place to “go more slowly and with caution” and asks that hormones not be given to children younger than 18 because there is no evidence that the drugs “buy time to think” or “reduce suicide risks.” In short, although drugs can suppress puberty, the research carried out found that the drugs have no effect on the person’s body satisfaction or their experience of gender dysphoria.
Dr Cass also advised parents and teachers to exercise great caution with primary school children that express a sexual identity different from that which corresponds to them. Moreover, she points out that, often, parents feel pressured and, hence, let their children change their identity for fear of being labelled transphobic.
The Report was welcomed by, among others, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who highlighted the impacting data it contained, beginning by the number of those that have decided to change their sex, which has gone from 250 ten years ago (almost all men) to 5,000 at present, more than double than in 2022 (the majority women). “We don’t know the long-term impact of the medical treatment that leads to sex reassignment and, for this reason, we must act with great caution,” said Prime Minister Sunak.
The response of the British National Health System (NHS) to the “Cass Report” was immediate. A letter, addressed to the renowned paediatrician and signed by John Stewart, one of the NHS Directors, includes the commitment to opt for a new focus, based on the conclusions of the research, and to suspend for the time being, all appointments to children under 18, which British clinics offer in which sex reassignment can be obtained. In addition, the text continues, the distribution of hormones, such as estrogen and progesterone, will be reconsidered, as already happened with hormonal blockers some weeks ago.
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