England’s health regulator has approved a private hormone clinic which threatens to continue the work of the discredited Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS).
Dr. Aidan Kelly worked at GIDS between 2016 and 2021, The Daily Mail reports. Since then, he has founded the private Gender Plus Hormone Clinic, which this week became the first of its kind to be approved by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to prescribe hormones to over-16s.
Kelly’s new clinic is part of the private company Gender Plus, which describes itself as “a team of clinicians specialising in gender identity … [which feels] passionately about the rights of the transgender and non-binary population to access appropriate care.”
GIDS was a controversial NHS transgender clinic within the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. Over recent years it took in thousands of children, some as young as three, for psychological assessment until an official review found it to be “not safe” for children—resulting in its protracted “closure” first initiated in 2022 but continuing until at least March this year.
Alongside Dr. Kelly, six Gender Plus staff members used to work at the Tavistock NHS clinic, according to The Times. In this former setting, several doctors reportedly felt “pressured to adopt an unquestioning approach” when treating children uncertain of their gender.
The re-emergence of GIDS staff members and their organisation’s ideology will alarm many parents and also “detransitioners,’ typically young adults who regret their own childhood gender reassignment. Prior to the official censure of the London clinic, it became so notorious on “safeguarding” issues that “Tavistock” became shorthand for the failings, as summarised in the Cass Report, of one of its own clinics.
Despite such concerns, Dr. Kelly has stressed that the CQC approval “lets people know we are held to the highest standard.” The CQC itself is an independent body sponsored by the Department of Health. It is responsible for ensuring that new care services are “safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs and well-led.” Clinicians say the unit within Gender Plus will not prescribe puberty-blocking treatment.
Transgender activist attack site PinkNews welcomes the news, reporting, that:
As well as offering prescriptions and overseeing hormone treatment, the clinic will also have staff on hand to answer any hormone-related questions and provide support and medical input throughout the process that accounts for a patient’s gender, sexual orientation, mental health, and neurodiversity.
If the previous “Tavistock” experience is anything to go by, the new clinic will require diligent child protection and medical scrutiny.
