Transgender commentator Katy Jon Went has warned that the NHS must be "extremely cautious" when it comes to transgender children, following the release of a new report into the health system's services.
The Cass Review, published today by paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass, claims young people with gender dysphoria have been "let down" by the NHS, and has called for gender services for young people to "match the standards of other NHS care".
Dr Cass said she was "disappointed" by the "lack of evidence on the long-term impact of taking hormones from an early age".
Reacting to the report, Katy Jon Went shared her support for the review on GB News and said there "is still evidence that it can be the right thing for some people, who have persistently felt gender dysphoria from a young age".
Katy Jon Went says we should be 'extremely cautious' when dealing with transgender children
PA / GB News
Went warned however that following the report, the NHS must be "extremely cautious" when dealing with kids with gender-based issues.
Went added that the language surrounding puberty blockers and the belief that "puberty goes on pause with puberty blockers is kind of pretty much gone for good around this".
Host Eamonn Holmes argued that although the report claims transgender does exist, Cass is "not saying it does exist to the extent that it has been listened to and treated so far".
Went agreed with Holmes, and said the health services "need to look at all of the other causes", and that it is a "mental distress".
The Tavistock Centre was closed in March after the clinic was rated 'inadequate' by inspectors
PA
Went explained: "Where there are other causes, we need to be really cautious that we're not treating some other cause with the transgender solution."
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Went continued: "We know that up to three quarters of people who are going through gender distress aren't actually what we would have called 'transgender' in the old school kind of diagnosis.
"The fact that we're diagnosing it younger, but then giving an adult treatment to it is where the kind of the issue is."
On reflection of the report, Went claimed: "I think it is constructive, many trans people won't, and I only speak for myself, I don't represent a trans community.
"She sees a very constructive approach, suggesting that this should shift to a cross-disciplinary kind of paediatric basis for this, that there should be long term, very slow support. She uses the word unhurried, which I think is actually very sensible, which is what we used to talk about ten years plus ago was the watch and wait aspect, and it needs to be moving back to that."
Katy Jon Went says we need a 'slower approach' to treating gender-based issues with young people
GB News
Host Isabel Webster highlighted Crass's remarks on "exceptional toxicity" letting down children in the NHS, and the role of "activist charities heaping pressure on the NHS and parents", who've been led to believe if they "don't deal with this imminently before their child hits puberty, they might kill themselves or they might self-harm".
When asked if she agreed with Crass's comments, Went responded: "That's the biggest thing I do agree with, the whole polarisation. The fact that six out of seven of the adult gender clinics were kind of disinclined to be part of the follow up studies of the cohort of 9000 teenagers who came through the Tavistock, went on to adult clinics, and then the adult clinic said, look, we don't want to do the studies that you want to do.
"Even medicine is kind of scared of this polarisation, and we need to be able to have these dialogues and have these debates without getting offended by it."
An NHS spokesperson said: "NHS England is very grateful to Dr Cass and her team for their comprehensive work on this important review over the past four years.
"The NHS has made significant progress towards establishing a fundamentally different gender service for children and young people, in line with earlier advice by Dr Cass and following extensive public consultation and engagement, by stopping the routine use of puberty suppressing hormones and opening the first of up to eight new regional centres delivering a different model of care."