More than 350 children under the age of 6 were referred to the U.K.’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), part of the Tavistock and Portman Trust, in the last decade.
Over 70 children were 3-years-old and 4-years-old, according to the Daily Mail.
Between 2010 and 2020, the clinic saw 12 three-year-olds, 61 four-year-olds, 140 five-year-olds, and 169 six-year-olds.
In 2010-2011, the clinic had 136 patients. By 2021-2022, the clinic worked with 3,585 children.
An estimated 19,000 were sent to the gender clinic across 25 years.
Health Service officials are considering implementing a minimum age requirement for patients due to communication difficulties in young children.
The proposed minimum age is 7.
American Faith reported that the National Health Service (NHS) called for the Tavistock Centre and its Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) to be shut down.
The gender treatments were deemed “not a safe or viable long-term option,” according to Dr. Hilary Cass, who submitted a report to NHS.
Whistleblowers from the gender clinic revealed girls were considered transgender if they did not like “pink ribbons and dollies,” as well as other ideas holding “no psychological scrutiny at all.”
The Tavistock Centre is set to close in March 2024.
The transgender clinic also faced legal action from families over allegedly misdiagnosing their children.
“Children and young adolescents were rushed into treatment without the appropriate therapy and involvement of the right clinicians, meaning that they were misdiagnosed and started on a treatment pathway that was not right for them,” said Tom Goodhead of the Pogust Goodhead law firm, adding that “children have suffered life-changing and, in some cases, irreversible effects of the treatment they received.”
