On October 7, 2020, Keira Bell went to court in London to fight against a system that pathologizes and medicalizes youth nonconformity. At 16 years old, after just three appointments, doctors began the process of transitioning Bell, medically, to ‘change’ her sex. Tomorrow morning, the judgement on her case comes in.
Bell is a former patient of Tavistock’s Gender Identity Development Service for under 18’s, where she was given puberty blockers at age 16, and prescribed testosterone at age 17. She was later sent to the adult Gender Identity Clinic in London, and by the age of 20, surgeons had performed a double mastectomy on her.
Bell raised £50,491 (over $67k) to bring this case to court. She isn’t looking for compensation. She’s looking to change the policies that currently work against kids like her.
Young people do not reach full cognitive brain development till around the age of 25, a fact that the medical field collectively decided to either forget, or ignore, when it came to medicalizing and performing surgeries on kids like Bell. In the US, toddlers, as young as 1, are labeled “transgender,” children, as young as 8, are medicalized, and double mastectomies are performed on kids as young as 13.
Statistically, the majority of kids like Bell would grow out of ‘gender dysphoria,’ if allowed to grow up, without interference.
Medical malpractice has been committed on a global scale, because no one will challenge the foundational lie, that this is a biological condition.
This shift from a psychological condition to a biological one happened when activists and patients got involved with WPATH and APA, changing definitions from Gender Identity Disorder to Gender Dysphoria.
If the court rules in Bell’s favor, young people will have a better chance of growing up before life-altering decisions are made. This case doesn’t just represent Bell, it represents thousands of young people who’ve come forward with similar stories, despite a powerful campaign to silence them.
Source: Landmark Case in the Fight to Protect Nonconforming Youth – The Velvet Chronicle
She won. Which is great news for all women.