NHS gender service for children, thinks all girls who don’t like ‘pink ribbons and dollies’ must be transgender, says David Bell

Whistle-blower Dr David Bell has claimed the NHS’s sole gender service for children, believes all girls who don’t like ‘pink ribbons and dollies’ must be transgender.

Dr Bell worked at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust said there was a ‘rigid, binary construction of gender’, in the UK’s only gender identity development service for children.

He added the service thought the 'only acceptable explanation' for children who are 'unwilling or unable to conform to gender stereotypes' is that they must be transgender.

Speaking at a conference organised by Genspect, a support group for gender-questioning children and young people, Dr Bell criticised the service’s work for putting young people on a path to lifelong medical treatment.

He resigned from the NHS Trust earlier in 2021, almost three years after a damning internal report which made claims that the trust’s Gender Identity Development Service, was ‘not fit for purpose’.

Describing the Trust’s work as a ‘gateway to puberty blockers', Dr Bell claimed 98 per cent of teens who received the treatment later took cross-sex hormones.

Summarising the service’s 'construction of gender' as 'if you don't like pink ribbons and dollies you are not really a girl' and claimed the centre is pushing drugs and even surgery on children as 'a form of conversion therapy'.

In the 2019 report, Dr Bell wrote that the service was not fully considering factors in a child’s background, such as previous abuse or autism, which might influence their decision to transition.

Government proposals to ban conversion therapy in certain scenarios will be seen as a “ban in name only” by survivors, according to a former Government LGBT adviser.

Jayne Ozanne, who describes herself as a gay evangelical Christian, was one of several members to step down from the LGBT advisory panel in March citing concerns about a “hostile environment” being created for LGBT people.

She said the long-awaited proposals, announced on Friday in a six-week public consultation, will “sadly” allow abuse to continue.

Part of the plans include creating a new offence for talking therapies that seek to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity, when committed against under-18s in all circumstances, and adults who have not given fully informed consent.