the times | Wednesday December 2 2020 2GM 31
Leading articles
prevent the Tavistock from prescribing puberty
blockers to her autistic 15-year-old daughter.
But the verdict is also a victory for sanity. The
Times has in recent years reported the repeated
concerns of whistleblowers at the way that the Ta-
vistock had been too readily dispensing puberty
blockers to children as young as ten, most of whom
they believed needed psychological help rather
than potentially life-changing treatment. Doctors
at the clinic had argued that puberty blockers were
simply a pausing strategy until children were old
enough to decide whether to proceed to cross-sex
hormone treatment, which is only allowed to
those over 16 and whose physical effects are irre-
versible. The court gave this short shrift, noting
that practically all children prescribed puberty
blockers go on to take cross-sex hormones. What’s
more, it heard that it was extremely unusual for
the clinic to refuse puberty blockers on the basis
that a child could not give informed consent.
The reality is that no child can adequately com-
prehend the consequences of embarking on a path
that will almost certainly lead to cross-sex hor-
mones and surgery. Those consequences include
likely loss of sexual function and fertility and the
psychological impact that might have on future
relationships. That’s on top of the possible long-term effects of the puberty blockers themselves
about which there has been a worrying lack of re-
search. As Ms Bell told the court: “I made a brash
decision as a teenager... trying to find confidence
and happiness, except now the rest of my life will
be negatively affected. I cannot reverse any of the
physical, mental or legal changes that I went
through. Transition was a very temporary, superfi-
cial fix for a very complex identity issue.”
Indeed that is the nub of the issue. No one dis-
putes that gender dysphoria is a serious condition
affecting a growing number of young people, par-
ticularly girls. The number referred to the GIDS
has risen from 97 in 2009 to 2,519 last year, of
which well over 50 per cent were under the age of
15 and 76 per cent were female. In 2009, the gender
split had been 50:50. There will be some for whom
transitioning to a different gender is the answer.
But for many it is possible that, as with eating
disorders and self-harm, the underlying condition
is psychological. About one third of the children
referred to the clinic have autism. What these
children need above all else is access to far better
mental health services to help them to reconcile
themselves to their gender — not life-changing
physical interventions that might alleviate short-
term distress at the price of long-term trauma.social responsibility. With other vaccines, such as
that for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) herd
immunity is vital to prevent the most vulnerable,
such as the very young, who often are not vacci-
nated at all. With Covid-19, fortunately, the young
are relatively resilient and the most vulnerable are
likely to be vaccinated first.
In either case, the government must work hard
to incentivise uptake and to combat the
disinformation and conspiracies of anti-vaccine
campaigners. Except for in a few specific areas,
healthcare for example, mandating vaccination by
law is a bad idea. It is wiser to simply note, as Mr
Zahawi has done, that a great many businesses
may wish to demand proof of vaccination from
those coming through their doors. It is the
government’s job to facilitate this. To regard such
rules as discrimination, as some campaigners pre-
emptively do, is childish. If a vaccine does indeed
hinder transmission, it would be far more illiberal
to compel business owners to put themselves,
their staff and their other customers at risk.
It is already common for international travellers
to carry less formal health passports and manyAfrican nations demand yellow fever vaccination
certificates as a condition of entry. It is likely that
many countries, including this one, will do similar
with Covid-19. Airlines may be some of the first
businesses to demand proof of inoculation.
Greater difficulties will arise with pubs,
nightlife, theatres and sporting venues, which may
struggle to enforce entry requirements. Some
venues may even make a virtue of not doing,
becoming reservoirs of infection within
communities. All of this will raise issues of
licensing, policing and enforcement quite unlike
any this country has previously had to tackle.
Most likely, the strangest and most difficult
period will come in the interim, when mass
vaccination is under way but incomplete. For
these months, and it should not be more, there
may be many people unable to live as others can,
yet unable to yet get a vaccine either. All of these
challenges are daunting, but there is time to
prepare. The government’s efforts to roll out the
now-ubiquitous NHS Covid app were flawed to
the point of almost being farcical. This time they
should be keen to do better.are people on the planet. Though its listeners are
less numerous, the Times News Briefing can take
satisfaction in its own ranking. Data released by
Spotify yesterday show that it’s the third most
popular podcast in Britain.
The briefing is a three-minute broadcast of news
headlines and analysis, delivered three times a day.
It’s available online, on DAB, smart speaker or the
Times radio app. The popularity of podcasting lies
in its low, fixed running costs, and there is a risk in
the digital age that the information inexpensively
conveyed through that medium may be of poor
quality. This is a particular concern in a historiccrisis of public health and the economy, when
baseless conspiracy theories spread rapidly and
the investigative work needed to provide hard
information to refute them is time-consuming.
The same medium that spreads Bunny’s beat
enables us to produce a brief and concentrated
news podcast, rapidly updated and available in-
stantly. It caters to modern tastes while satisfying
the requirement for accuracy and disinterested
scrutiny rather than propaganda. We are commit-
ted to providing that service, alongside our digital
and print publishing, and gratified that it meets a
widespread public demand in turbulent times.Fine Judgment
A High Court ruling that children are not competent to consent to
being treated with puberty blockers is a victory for common sense
The verdict of the High Court could hardly have
been more emphatic. It is “highly unlikely” that a
child aged 13 or under would ever be competent to
consent to being treated with puberty blockers
and it is “doubtful” that a child aged 14 or 15 could
do so either, given the long-term risks and conse-
quences of drugs prescribed to children suffering
from gender dysphoria. That is a condition in
which people believe themselves to have been
born into the wrong biological sex. Indeed, the
court went further and recommended that
doctors should not prescribe puberty blockers
even to 16 and 17-year-olds without first seeking
the consent of the courts. That sets such a high bar
as to effectively rule out any further use of these
drugs to treat gender dysphoria in children.
This is a victory for Keira Bell and Mrs A who
brought the case against the Gender Identity
Development Service (GIDS) clinic at Tavistock
Hospital in London. Ms Bell is a 23-year-old
woman who had been prescribed puberty block-
ers as a child and went on to transition to become
a man but has since reverted. She argued that she
was in no position as a troubled 15-year-old to un-
derstand the long-term physical and psychologi-
cal consequences of her treatment which has
caused her long-term harm. Mrs A was seeking toHard Pass
It is inevitable, and desirable, that vaccinated people will be able to do more
If a vaccine against Covid-19 offers a passport to
normality, then there looms a long and difficult
interim in which parts of the population have been
vaccinated and parts have not. Their relative
freedoms and opportunities may turn out to be
one of the biggest political issues of 2021.
On Monday, Nadhim Zahawi, the new vaccine
minister, suggested that the government was
“looking at the technology” required to keep track
of who had been vaccinated and who had not and,
more contentiously, that “restaurants and bars
and cinemas and other venues, sports venues, will
probably also use that system”. Yesterday Michael
Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, insisted that
nobody in government was “planning to introduce
any vaccine passports”. Between those two
apparently contradictory statements there may
lie disagreement, or nuance, or simply chaos.
Much hinges on the still open question of whe-
ther some or any of the new vaccines prevent only
illness from the coronavirus, or also prevent the
transmission of it. If the latter, then vaccination
moves from being a choice made by an individual
primarily for their own safety, and becomes aBroadcast News
Providing hard fact and unbiased analysis by podcast is proving popular
New technologies have revolutionised the way we
listen to music and speech. Streaming services do
away with the need to store physical copies of
sound recordings, whether on vinyl or CD. They
have also shifted consumer tastes.
The most popular recording artists globally now
include singers from Asia and Latin America
rather than being limited to North America and
Britain. The most-streamed performer of 2020 on
Spotify was yesterday announced to be Bad Bunny
(not his real name), a Puerto Rican rapper whose
tracks have been played more than 8.3 billion
times this year, roughly the same number as thereUK: A three-tier system of restrictions in
England replaces the national lockdown;
Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland
secretary, takes questions from MPs.
The afternoon was
fading when the
kestrel came. Quick
wings cutting
through the
December silence, it
quartered thewoods, then began hovering over the acre of
rough pasture. Wings wide, tail fanning, the
raptor hung almost motionless at twice the
height of the nearby ash tree. Its blue-grey
head echoed the winter sky, and the reddish
tinge of its back merged with the setting
sun. Kestrels see the world far more sharply
than we do. They can spy a beetle or worm
more than 150ft below, and will take such
meagre fare. Voles though are their main
prey. Able to see ultraviolet light, they can
detect rodent urine trails winding through
long grass. jonathan tulloch
In 1954 the US Republican senator
Joseph McCarthy was censured by the
Senate for unacceptable conduct, ending
his years of anti-communist crusading.
Penelope Tree, pictured,
fashion model in the
Swinging Sixties, 71;
Lord (Tim) Boswell of
Aynho, Conservative MP
(1987-2010), 78; Brendan
Coyle, actor, Downton
Abbey (2010-15, 2019), 58;Paula Dunn, Paralympic head coach, UK
Athletics, 56; Mike England, footballer,
Tottenham Hotspur (1966-75), Wales
(1962-75) and manager (1979-87), 79;
Alfred Enoch, actor, the Harry Potter films
(2001-11), How to Get Away with Murder
(2014-20), 32; Lord (Andrew) Fraser of
Corriegarth, Conservative Party treasurer
(2015-16), 74; Nelly Furtado,
singer-songwriter, Promiscuous (2006), 42;
Michael P Green, founder, Carlton
Communications, 73; Marshal of the RAF
Sir Peter Harding, chief of the defence staff
(1992-94), 87; Craig Hassall, chief executive,
Royal Albert Hall, 56; Patricia Hewitt,
Labour MP (1997-2010), chairwoman, UK
India Business Council (2009-17), health
secretary (2005-07), 72; Philip Knatchbull,
chief executive, Curzon World cinema
group, 59; James Lancelot, master of the
choristers and organist, Durham Cathedral
(1985-2017), 68; Lucy Liu, actress, Kill Bill:
Vol 1 (2003), 52; Tom McGuinness, guitarist,
Manfred Mann and the Blues Band, 79;
Edward Fitzalan-Howard, Duke of Norfolk,
the Earl Marshal, 64; Rt Rev Philip North,
suffragan bishop of Burnley, 54; Ann
Patchett, author, Bel Canto (2001), 57;
George Saunders, writer, Lincoln in the
Bardo (2017, Man Booker prizewinner), 62;
Monica Seles, tennis player, former world
No 1 (1991) and bronze medallist in the 2000
Olympics, 47; Jenny Lee Smith, golfer,
winner of the inaugural Women’s British
Open in 1976, 72; Britney Spears, singer,
... Baby One More Time (1999), 39;
Penelope Spheeris, film director, Wayne’s
Wo r l d (1992), 75; Jan Ullrich, cyclist, Tour de
France winner (1997), 47; Mary Ward,
co-founder (1974) and ambassador, the
Chickenshed theatre company, 76; Chris
Wolstenholme, rock bassist, Muse, 42.
“Poets are always taking the weather so
personally. They’re always sticking their
emotions in things that have no emotions.”
JD Salinger, writer, Teddy (1953)
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