Time to Think

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION?SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING?'This is what journalism is for' - Observer?Time to Think goes behind the headlines to reveal the truth about the NHS's flagship gender service for children.The Tavistock's Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) was set up initially to provide talking therapies to young people who were questioning their gender identity.But in the last decade GIDS referred around two thousand children, some as young as nine years old, for medication to block their puberty. In the same period, the number of referrals exploded and the profile of the patients changed: from largely pre-pubescent boys to mostly adolescent girls, who were often contending with other difficulties. Was there enough clinical evidence to justify such profound medical interventions?This urgent, scrupulous and dramatic book explains how GIDS has been the site of a serious medical scandal, in which ideological concerns took priority over clinical practice. It is a disturbing and gripping parable for our times.

Auteur
Hannah Barnes is an award-winning journalist at the BBC's flagship current affairs programme Newsnight. Over the past decade and a half, Hannah has specialised in investigative and analytical journalism, and has spent many years reporting, editing and producing a variety of the BBC's most respected long-form programmes and documentaries.

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTIONSHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING'This is what journalism is for' - ObserverTime to Think goes behind the headlines to reveal the truth about the NHSs flagship gender service for children. The Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), based at the Tavistock and Portman Trust in North London, was set up initially to provide for the most part talking therapies to young people who were questioning their gender identity. But in the last decade GIDS has referred more than a thousand children, some as young as nine years old, for medication to block their puberty. In the same period, the number of young people seeking GIDS's help exploded, increasing twenty-five-fold. The profile of the patients changed too: from largely pre-pubescent boys to mostly adolescent girls, who were often contending with other difficulties. Why had the patients changed so dramatically? Were all these distressed young people best served by taking puberty blockers and then cross-sex hormones, which cause irreversible changes to the body? While some young people appeared to thrive after taking the blocker, many seemed to become worse. Was there enough clinical evidence to justify such profound medical interventions in the lives of young people who had so much else to contend with?This urgent, scrupulous and dramatic book explains how, in the words of some former staff, GIDS has been the site of a serious medical scandal, in which ideological concerns took priority over clinical practice. Award-winning journalist Hannah Barnes has had unprecedented access to thousands of pages of documents, including internal emails and unpublished reports, and well over a hundred hours of personal testimony from GIDS clinicians, former service users and senior Tavistock figures. The result is a disturbing and gripping parable for our times.