Children and Young People’s Gender Identity Health and Wellbeing services consultation

Who can respond?

Other than organisations, NSS most want to hear from:

• Children and young people who might want to use gender identity health and wellbeing services
• Children and young people who are currently being seen by the Sandyford, or on the waiting list to be seen
• Young adults
• Parents of trans children and young people

What should I say?

Whatever you think! NSS are asking what you think of their ideas, what you like about them and what’s missing.

One thing that we think is really important is that people who actually need these services or know what using them is like have their say. We can’t be certain, but we’re pretty sure that no one designing these new services has ever used them.

We don’t imagine that lots of people under 18 read our website. But in case you are, what you think really matters! Please tell them your ideas, what you want, and what’s important to you. Don’t worry too much about the questions, it’s more important that you say what you want to say.

If you’re a young adult who did use the Sandyford, or who came out at school, and you’ve got ideas about what you wished had been around at the time, then please take part as well.

And if you’re the parent of a trans child or young person, or a child or young person who explored or questioned their gender, it would be great for you to respond as well. Maybe you could do it together!

What do we think?

The model that they are proposing does not include access to puberty blockers (outside of a research trail) or gender affirming hormones. As far as we’re concerned, this means that there is a vital part of the pathway that is missing. We plan to make very clear in our response that a service that does not provide medical treatments will completely fail to meet the needs of those young people who would benefit from them. Not all young people who need support around their gender identity will want or need access to medical treatments, but some do. There is clear evidence that these treatments are safe and effective for that group of young people (see  for example this paper from New South Wales: https://www.saxinstitute.org.au/resource/evidence-for-effective-interventions-for-children-and-young-people-with-gender-dysphoria-update and this study from Utah: https://le.utah.gov/AgencyRP/reportingDetail.jsp?rid=636)

But we also recognise that there are lots of problems with the current model for Children and Young People’s services and some of these proposals seem like they’d make things better.

Currently there is a bit of an all or nothing approach – either you are being seen by a psychologist or psychiatrist for in-depth discussions about your gender identity, you are on a waiting list to see one, or you have no support or help at all. And all of this is provided at a single specialist Clinic.

That doesn’t work when you have children and young people of all different ages. Who are at totally different points when it comes to exploring their gender identity, feeling uncertain, or having definite goals for transition. Who may want opportunities to have less intrusive, less high stakes conversations. And who don’t want to have to travel to Glasgow to get any kind of support.

So we think the idea of having more services all across the country, that can properly meet children and young people where they’re at, is a good one.

So there are some green shoots of good ideas, but ultimately we don’t think the service can meet the needs of everyone when there is no access to medical treatments. We don’t think that this is likely to change based on feedback to the consultation. We still think it’s important that we say it though – although we know that others might feel differently.

What will happen next?

This is step one in a two-step consultation. They’ll update the model based on feedback to the survey and consult again on their changes. That consultation is planned to be open for much longer and be much more formal than this consultation. At that point, NSS are interested in also running small discussion groups about the proposals – you can let them know if you’re interested in taking part in those when it reaches that stage in the current survey.