A spokesperson from women's and girl's rights group, Fair Play to Women, has branded the surge in the number of young children changing gender as a "social contagion fuelled by the internet".

Official figures have revealed that the number of girls receiving gender treatment rose from 40 in 2009 to 1,806 in 2017 and 2018, prompting equalities minister Penny Mordaunt, to order an investigation into the cause.

Dr Nicola Williams told Julia Hartley-Brewer the investigation was "long overdue" and that the number of girls undergoing sometimes irreversible procedures was "a tragedy".

"Girls, they bind their breasts and then they have their breasts removed leaving them with massive scars, they go on testosterone it makes them infertile, they have permanent facial hair and male pattern baldness. Boys, they go on oestrogen they grow their breasts but their genitals remain childlike, they have no sexual function. We are destroying these children's lives if we get this wrong.

​​​​​​​"Adults are facilitating it and encouraging it. Schools are teaching it in class. Nobody is allowed to question why so every child gets referred by all the adults they trust around them, this is so dangerous.

"Yes, people will call us transphobic for this but you know what, I don't care. If the audience asked their friends do they know anybody who has a daughter or a granddaughter wanting to be trans, they'll soon find people. There are clusters in schools. This is clearly a social contagion fuelled by the internet.

'Tragedy unfolding'

"There's a tragedy unfolding here. In a decades' time there'll be a whole generation of girls, infertile, no breasts, and they'll all be asking why didn't the adults around them talk sense and not go along with these teenage beliefs."

A source at the Government Equalities Office told the Times: "There has been a substantial increase in the number of individuals assigned female at birth being referred to the NHS.

“There is evidence that this trend is happening in other countries as well. Little is known, however, about why this is and what are the long-term impacts.”

"The idea that if a girl likes to do boys things, that doesn't mean someone's trans and you don't put them on medication to change their body. What you do is you change society to allow girls to just be girls that like to do things that we typically regard as boys things," Dr Williams added.