Doctors delivering transgender healthcare have admitted some patients are too young or mentally ill to fully understand the consequences of treatment.
Messages leaked from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health revealed how medics acknowledged teenagers given puberty-blocking drugs did not always realise they could never have children.
Some members of the US group, who have helped guide NHS procedures in England and Scotland, claimed patients went ahead with surgery despite fears about their ability to fully provide informed consent.
Dan Metzger, a hormone specialist at a children’s hospital in Canada, told the meeting: “Most of the kids are nowhere in any kind of a brain space to really talk about it in a serious way.”
Experts even discussed how patients developed tumours or died from cancer linked to hormone treatment.
A doctor wrote: “I have one transition friend/colleague who, after about eight to 10 years of [testosterone] developed hepatocarcinoma [a form of liver cancer].
“To the best of my knowledge, it was linked to his hormone treatment… it was so advanced that he opted for palliative care and died a couple of months later.”
The gender therapist claimed they had only turned one person down for treatment in 15 years.
However, critics said the private messages contradict public assurances that so-called gender-affirming care is “medically necessary”.
Source: Trans healthcare workers admitted some patients too young for treatment in leaked messages
It is wicked that these have not been counted in evidence for not just affirming care
I know of a child receiving hormone treatment in NSW at age 12.