Gregory Stafford - keep your misplaced concerns to yourself
Leave history-taking and medical care to the medics, not the politicians!
Gregory Stafford1, the Conservative MP for Farnham and Bordon, has got himself wound up about history-taking now.2
When medics see patients, we ask them questions. We don’t make assumptions, we just ask questions, kindly and non-judgmentally, and most of the time the answer is a simple “No”.
Or maybe he is excited because he has found another excuse to criticise the chances of trans children being able to access puberty blockers?
He’s upset because the NHS intend to use the well-respected ALSPAC3 questionnaire with young trans people.
It is good medical practice not to:
‘look at your patient and see whether you should ask’
‘not ask in case it causes offence’
‘only ask people who are of a certain age or colour or religion’
If you ask everyone then you miss no-one.
There are many young people under the age of 16 having sex4 and if we don’t ask, we can’t identify abuse or coercion or grooming. We can’t offer sexual health advice and testing. We can’t offer contraception.
Stop treating trans kids differently and weaponising their care!
ALSPAC Romantic Relations Measure
The NHS Pathways trial includes this as one of their actions:
Young people aged 12 and above will complete the ALSPAC Romantic Relations measure, which assesses whether young people have engaged in any of the 14 sexual behaviours from the Adolescent Sexual Activities Index (ASAI)3 and the sex of the person with whom they did.5
Items are scored
0= they have not engaged in that sexual activity,
1= they engaged in that sexual activity with the other sex,
2= they engaged in that sexual activity with both sexes,
3= they engaged in that sexual activity with the same sex.
By far the majority can just say no they haven’t ,and move on.
What age do people start having sex?
According to NHS Borders, Scotland:
“Wide variation in age at sexual debut is part of the normal spectrum of adolescent development. By the end of the teenage years most young people in the UK will have had sex. The average age of sexual debut in the UK is 16 – 17. While most young people nowadays have not had sexual intercourse by the time they turn sixteen, between a third and half have.”6
And other surveys show:
“A survey conducted in 2005 found that the number of girls under 16 visiting family planning clinics had risen throughout the 1990s to peak at over ninety-one thousand in 2003, before falling to eighty-three thousand. The most popular choice was the condom with over half choosing this method of contraceptive.”7
So yes, it is important to ask, it is important not to discriminate against trans people and it is important to stop finding excuses to prevent care for trans youth.