Gendomercials

It’s never been easy to get gender reassignment surgery on the NHS. More than a decade ago, when I was living in Birmingham, I was referred by a psychiatrist to a Gender Identity Clinic in London. NHS England funded seven adult clinics: none of which were anywhere near me. I had to take six days off work just to attend a series of brief appointments at the Charing Cross GIC in Hammersmith. My first assessment came in May 2012, six months after that referral. Four years later, I was eventually discharged after my surgery.
Sajid Javid spoke some sense earlier this week when he said that the word ‘woman’ should not be removed from NHS ovarian cancer guidance. The Health Secretary was responding to the revelations that the NHS website had been stripping the word ‘woman’ from its advice pages. But fine words are only a start. The Health Secretary needs to get a grip on an NHS website that seems in thrall to magical thinking on sex and gender.
Cervical cancer and ovarian cancer only affect women. So why has the NHS been quietly erasing the word ‘women’ from information pages on its official website?
‘I think I might be transgender!’ How should schools react to such revelations? By the time they find out, the child may already be convinced that their identity lies on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. Probably with its own multi-coloured flag.