Gender ideology campaigner Chris Elston has hit out at the diagnosis of gender dysphoric children and said that "there is always something else going on" when the children are diagnosed.
Gender dysphoria is a term that describes a sense of unease that a person may have because of a mismatch between their biological sex and their gender identity.
The campaigner explained that he feels that "distress about one's sex exists" but he would attribute the stress to other factors, including autism and abuse.
Speaking to GB News, he said: "Distress about one's sex exists, but honestly in almost all of these cases, it's not real gender dysphoria if that's even a thing.
"This used to be called gender identity disorder, I would even say that's not a thing either because we don't have gender identities. We have personalities.
"But what we do have in life is problems and these kids, when you look at what's going on, many of them have suffered sexual abuse and trauma and other sorts of abuse. Many of them are in state care.
"A huge percentage of these kids are on the autism spectrum. There's always something else going on. On average, these kids have several mental health comorbidities, and we're not treating any of those.
"We're treating genders as if that's the source of all their underlying problems.
"We need to get away from that and just find out what's really going on with these kids and just help them and give them time to grow up."
