To learn what a fox has to do with this post, please read to the end. If someone asserts they are 'transgender', a question that might follow is, 'Are you thinking of transitioning?' What does it mean to be transgender, and if you think you are, how do you know? Well, you just know, or think you do, [...]

GenderGP is an organisation that encourages and provides abnormal hormonal treatment (‘affirmative care’) to so-called trans people. It’s hard to take it seriously, however, when we find this kind of writing on their website: …patients whose gender identity differs from the one they were assigned at birth. Neither gender identity, whatever that is, nor anything else, is ‘assigned’ [...]

I discuss Dr Hilary Cass’ Preliminary Report in an earlier blog. The Final Report of her Independent review of gender identity services for children and young people was released in April 2024. It runs to almost 300 pages including a glossary, references, and twelve appendices. Dr Cass comes over as a very kind and friendly person – good [...]

The British Medical Journal needs a new copywriter as well as a new editorial policy. In the edition of 20 November 2023 there’s a headline, ‘CBT can help with range of menopausal symptoms says NICE’. (CBT means cognitive behavioural therapy and NICE is the awkward acronym of the smugly named National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.) Unnecessary [...]

Puberty can be a stressful, even turbulent, time with its physical and emotional changes. And these days, especially because of the influence of social media, it may happen that young people project their difficulties onto the idea that they are, or may be, ‘trans’. Such a belief, sense, or feeling – better to call it a delusion – [...]

In March 2023 the UK doctors’ regulatory body, the General Medical Council (GMC), put out on its website information about adult ‘Trans healthcare’ with a sub-heading, ‘Every patient has the right to high-quality and inclusive healthcare.’ Patients do not, I think, want low-quality, non-inclusive healthcare, so this hardly needs saying. Patronising Under another sub-heading, ‘How to make your [...]

If the purpose of the UK government website, ‘Apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate’ is to put people off by its complexity, it will have succeeded. It starts with an ‘Overview’ where one is informed: Apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate if you want your affirmed gender (sometimes called an ‘acquired gender’) to be legally recognised in [...]

  In the application form for a British passport you’re asked to state your gender by putting a cross in one of two boxes. These are labeled ‘Male’ and ‘Female’ so that’s clear enough. Gender here is a synonym or euphemism for sex, otherwise it could lead to misunderstanding. Sex? Yes please! Or it might bring to mind [...]

Confused about your gender? Then you will need specialised gender care! Consider this scenario. A young boy wants to dress in girls’ clothes, play with girls’ toys, and expresses a liking for the colour pink. He says he is, or wishes he could be, a girl. His concerned parents wonder whether he has ‘gender dysphoria’ and take him [...]

When I was a medical student one of the subjects we had to become familiar with was called minor surgery. This meant learning how to sew up cuts, operate for ingrowing toenails, remove small skin cysts, and deal with similar problems. But it was impressed upon us that there is no such thing as minor surgery; there are [...]