Another day waking up to a national broadsheet newspaper accusing me of child abuse. Painting my child as mentally ill and a threat to others when she is neither.

“Under the banner of transgender equality children are being subjected to a form of child abuse by an adult world that is failing to treat or even wilfully exacerbate an often transient confusion” Melanie Philips, The Times, 3^rd October 2017

The fact that we live in a country where these lies, this hate, this prejudice is regularly printed in a national daily broadsheet defies belief. I cannot imagine any other area where parents following evidence based best practice to support their children are so accused. Surely there would be an outcry if columnists accused parents of child abuse for vaccinating their children? These lies damage transgender children. These lies are themselves a form of child abuse.

Worse still than the fact that ill-informed bigots can write lies in the national press, is the knowledge that these lies will go unchallenged. Bigots in the media know that transgender children cannot speak up. They know that parents of transgender children dare not speak up. We just bow our shoulders, avoid looking people in the eye, wonder which of the judgemental faces on the playground have read the latest attack piece and believe we are abusing our child.

Where are our allies standing up for transgender children?

Where are the NSPCC, articulating the evidence based consensus that supporting transgender children is in their best interests, and that to reject and stigmatise transgender children is a form of child abuse? Where are the journalists who were so vocal when Trump was calling out for Trans service people to be kicked out of the US military? Where is the Stonewall poster saying:

“Some Children Are Trans: Get Over it”.

Where is the challenge from the experts in the NHS?

The NHS Gender Identity Service (GIDS) understands that public ignorance and prejudice is the number one barrier to the happiness and wellbeing of transgender children. The NHS Gender Identity Service is, as per its own guidelines, supposed to advocate for transgender children. In other countries, such as America and Australia, Gender Experts devote a portion of their time to public advocacy, defending and educating about transgender children – publically challenging lies and misinformation. They do this because they are all too aware of the impact of societal stigma, created, developed and perpetuated by a media of misinformation and fake news.

In the media appearances of UK NHS Gender Specialists, more care is given to defending their Gender Service to sceptics and transphobes, emphasising how some children are not really trans, emphasising how much caution they have, how slow and conservative their support is. They fail in their moral and legal duty of educating the public and advocating for transgender children. When media lies, misinformation and prejudice appears, instead of ignoring or fuelling this, they need to be challenging it clearly, fiercely and publically.

In response to today’s Times piece they should:

1. Put a statement on their website in an clear area where parents and journalists can see it
2. Put out a press release
3. Write to the Times expressing their concern
4. Write to the Independent Press Standards Organisation outlining that lies about evidence based NHS support for transgender children is damaging and harmful

I’ll even write it for them:

Press release:

“Transgender people exist. Transgender people always have existed, in countries all around the world. Being transgender is widely recognised as a normal part of human diversity. Transgender people are not a threat, or mentally ill, or confused. There is a durable biological underpinning to gender identity – this is not a choice and transgender people cannot be converted. Attempting to convert transgender people into a different identity is considered unethical and ineffective and has been outlawed by all competent evidence based professionals.

Transgender children exist. Medical consensus is that transgender children thrive if acknowledged and supported to live in their identified gender. Transgender children suffer high levels of depression, self-harm and suicidality if forced to live a lie. This is not a choice. Parents who support transgender children are following evidence-based guidance and are doing what is best for their child. Spreading lies, ignorance and prejudice about transgender children is a serious threat to their well being. Media bigotry, exemplified by today’s piece in The Times, is a form of child abuse that causes significant harm and suffering to vulnerable transgender children.”

Here’s a Tweet to go with it:

All the evidence shows That transgender children pre-puberty who are supported at home and at school have normal levels of mental health and well-being and do not require regular appointments with medical professionals. The single biggest support that the NHS Gender Identity Service can offer to these children is clear, confident advocacy on behalf of transgender children to an ignorant and ill-informed (and often hostile) media.

Every single media communication from the UK Gender Identity Service should be designed to serve the best interests of transgender children. This is currently not happening.

Parents are fast losing patience with an NHS service that is failing our children. The NHS must do better. Clear, confident communications supporting, normalising and de-pathologising transgender children is where they need to start.