“Medication is binary, but gender expressions are often not”—the Hilary Cass interview

Your report describes a very complex situation. But at its heart is a concern for the wellbeing of young people?

Children and young people with gender related distress have been poorly served because we’ve exceptionalised them. Health professionals are nervous to see them in local services and so they have often been bypassed straight through to the Gender Identity Development Service at the Tavistock and Portman, whose waiting list has grown exponentially. Many have neurodiversity or other mental health problems that you would expect somebody to address locally. But if health professionals feel they can’t see them, then they sit on this long waiting list. And by the time they are seen, all of this has got much worse.