Tavistock prescribed blockers after just two sessions
Konstantin Kisin said:
“Hannah Barnes, who we had on the show who did the investigation on this for the BBC, she said that what she found is some people were prescribed puberty blockers after two sessions with a consultant. Does that sound like sufficient-”
Two sessions before a significant medical intervention sounds dangerously fast, and the Tavistock's closure following the Cass Review gives the claim institutional weight. A BBC journalist as the source adds further credibility.
Those two sessions were with the endocrinologist who held the prescribing pen, not with the full clinical team. By the time a young person reached that appointment, they had typically been through months or years of psychological assessment, family work, and multidisciplinary review. The criticism most often levelled at the Tavistock, including in the Cass Review itself, was that this earlier process ran too long and inconsistently, not that children were seen twice and sent home with a prescription. Stripping the endocrinologist's sessions out of that context and presenting them as the whole story leaves the public believing something reckless happened that did not, and it makes it harder for trans young people today to access care that was, for most of them, careful and hard-won.
What I said at the time:
“With the endocrinologist, maybe. But the, but the, the, the evaluation with the psychological and family team, w- I mean, all the criticisms were that it went on for years and years and years.”
The public, who are left with a distorted picture of how gender services actually operated, and trans young people whose care is characterised as reckless.