A psychiatric nurse is taking the NHS to court over the use of what she describes as "experimental" puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones on children who wish to undergo gender reassignment.

Susan Evans was employed at the the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, which runs the UK's only gender identity development service (GIDS).

She left after becoming increasingly concerned that young children were being given "experimental treatment" without adequate assessments.

Ms Evans has also accused gender-diverse support groups of having undue influence on what happens at the clinic.

Her lawyers will argue that the provision of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones at the clinic to under-18s is illegal as children cannot give valid consent to treatment.


The case is also being brought on behalf of Mrs A, the mother of a 15-year-old autistic girl who is currently on the waiting list for treatment at the service.

Writing on the Crowd Justice online page to raise funds, Mrs A said: "I have deep concerns that the current clinical approach at GIDS means that my daughter will be subjected to an experimental treatment path that is not adequately regulated, where there are insufficient safeguards, where her autism will not be properly accounted for and where no-one (let alone my daughter) understands the risks and therefore cannot ensure informed consent is obtained."

Ms Evans has claimed more than 30% of children at the GIDS clinic are autistic, while many had suffered some sort of trauma and others are confused and socially anxious.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme, she alleged it was willing to offer drugs to children under 16, and even as young as nine or 10.

She said: "When I was working within the service, what I found out fairly quickly was that some of the children were being referred on to get hormones at a very young age - at the time it was 16, to me it seemed a young age - but they were maybe seen four or five times by some of the clinicians.

"I just couldn't see that enough psychological work had been done with the children. "They've lowered the age group for this experimental treatment.

"It's an off-licence treatment, the drug was not developed for the purpose for which it's being used.

"I used to feel concerned it was being given to 16-year-olds, but now the age limit has been lowered and children as young as perhaps nine or 10 are being asked to give informed consent to a completely experimental treatment for which the long-term consequences are not known.

"The Tavistock will say the effects are fully reversible but the truth is nobody knows that for sure."

Ms Evans said that "virtually 100%" of the children who were started on the "experimental blocker" received cross-sex hormones "which is going to lead to much deeper difficulties in physical terms, perhaps leading to future infertility (and) interfering with sexual functioning".

She added: "I don't believe a child of nine or 10 can possibly understand - no matter how clever they are or how mature they seem - can possibly comprehend what their future adult life will be like and also then what they are consenting to possibly giving up, or the risks to their health."

A spokesman for the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust said it was not appropriate to comment in detail in advance of any proposed legal proceedings, but added that its "clinical interventions are laid out in nationally-set service specifications".

"NHS England monitor our service very closely. The service has a high level of reported satisfaction and was rated good by the Care Quality Commission."