Social media is fuelling a surge in the number of children seeking treatment to change gender, a director at England’s only specialist NHS clinic for youngsters said yesterday.

Dr Polly Carmichael also admitted the service was under pressure from lobby groups to ‘fast-track’ children into transitioning without giving them proper advice.

Her comments come after another director quit his role at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust following a damning internal report saying the service was ‘not fit for purpose’.

The number seeking referrals has risen from 97 in 2009 to 2,519 in the year to April 2018 and children are now having to wait up to 20 months for an initial appointment. File photo

Psychotherapist Marcus Evans stepped down after 30 years, saying he has ‘serious concerns with what is going on in the gender identity world’.

He said that offering children the ‘quick solution’ of allowing them to begin medical treatment to change gender was ‘exactly the opposite of what needs to be done’.

In response to his comments Dr Carmichael, a director of the trust’s Gender Identity Development Service, admitted: ‘I think we’ve been under pressure for many, many years by people who feel perhaps that we should go faster and offer earlier physical intervention.

‘Without a doubt there has been huge change over the last few years with many more young people coming forward and in that context the service has had to grow very quickly.’

She said the reason behind the rise was ‘greater acceptance and awareness’ of transgender issues, and added that ‘in some ways it’s a very positive thing’.

Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme whether social media is pushing children into changing gender when they may not have initially considered it, she said: ‘I think we’re all influenced by things around us and by social media.

‘I also think probably that social media has a big influence in that young people can get information, talk to each other.’ She added in a statement to the Daily Mail: ‘Social media can be a source of support and information for young people.

‘We are also aware that it can be a source of misinformation or raise unrealistic expectations.’ The Gender Identity Development Service is currently experiencing an ‘unprecedented increase’ in referrals, according to a statement on waiting times posted on its website.

The number seeking referrals has risen from 97 in 2009 to 2,519 in the year to April 2018 and children are now having to wait up to 20 months for an initial appointment.

The service, based in London and Leeds, has previously been criticised for not treating young people more quickly by pro-trans groups such as the Mermaids charity.

Following the internal report into the service, a letter was signed by 25 clinicians at the trust who are upset at how the concerns it raised had been handled. The trust said it had now made several recommendations on areas of improvement following the report and these would be discussed at a meeting next month.