Please read the concerns of Professor Michael Biggs, University of Oxford here.
Safe Schools Alliance UK are appalled to read this devastating piece by Michael Biggs, Associate Professor at the University of Oxford. Biggs details the unethical treatment of children at the Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS).
We urge strongly everybody to read this piece in full and forward it to their MP, outlining their concerns. We also advise forwarding this article to your child’s school and enquiring whether they currently use an ‘affirmation’ approach with trans-identified pupils which puts them on a pathway towards the sort of under-researched and harmful medication described by Biggs.
Due to the absense of proper research and evidence on gender identity treatments, the Tavistock are not able to obtain truly informed consent for many of these experiments which have the potential to leave children sterile and lacking sexual function as adults. Safe Schools Alliance are alarmed by the similarities between GIDS treatments which inhibit a child’s later fertility or ability to orgasm and the barbaric practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) which has similar effects on children. Biggs’ comments about the effects of some of these experimental treatments are chilling:
‘Blocking puberty effectively destroys the individual’s ability to have children….Fertility should recover, but…stopping [taking puberty blockers] is exceptional[ly rare].’
‘Blocking puberty impedes the development of sexual functioning; some children…never develop the capacity for orgasm (Jontry 2018). When the endocrinologist at GIDS…was asked about [this], he refused to answer’
In light of this damning article, Safe Schools Alliance UK believes that a Public Inquiry into the treatment of trans-identified children can no longer be delayed. Any policies and procedures used by schools and other organisations dealing with children that have been influenced by lobby groups should be withdrawn with immediate affect and urgently reviewed.