Since the judgment, a number of commentators have noted that Tavistock not only lost but lost badly. It was refused leave to appeal on the day and is now applying directly to the Court of Appeal for leave. It is, I think, worth setting out why leave was refused. In short, Tavistock brought a knife to a shootout.
Tavistock had not collated data on the age distribution of those prescribed puberty blockers. It had kept no statistics on the number or proportion of children referred to Tavistock with an existing autism diagnosis and then prescribed puberty blockers. It has no data on the number, if any, of young people assessed suitable for puberty blockers where the drugs were not prescribed because they were not Gillick competent. There has been no research as to why, in 2011, the gender split among children presenting at the clinic was roughly 50/50 between natal girls and boys but by 2019 the split had become 76% in favour of girls.
Evidence from the Netherlands indicated, of the adolescents who started puberty suppression, only 1.9% did not proceed to cross-sex-hormones. Tavistock offered no alternative treatment paths, an aspect of the modern (and similarly unevidenced) fashion for “affirmative” treatment of gender dysphoria.
Source: The Keira Bell case was not a defeat for trans people, but a victory for restraint – CapX