Shuttering the Tavistock

The closure of Britain’s scandal-plagued youth gender clinic could help protect distressed children from unnecessary medicalisation.

Photo by Warren Wong on Unsplash

Before long, the closure of Britain’s Tavistock youth gender clinic, the world’s largest, will appear to have been inevitable, and it will be difficult to find any big names who’ll admit to once being its champion. But there was nothing inevitable about the exposure of the Tavistock’s failings. Nor is there any guarantee of success for the more mainstream approach to gender distress urged by paediatrician and service reviewer Dr. Hilary Cass, whose recommendations have been adopted in toto by England’s National Health Service (NHS). So much depends on individuals of character who seek to remedy wrongs and uphold principle, no matter how inconvenient this is for self-regarding institutions.

Read the rest of the article at Quillette, with thanks to founding editor Claire Lehmann.