Sky News host Rowan Dean has suggested a thousand families are suing Britain’s National Health Service over their treatment of transgender youth, but how accurate is this claim?
Warning: This story has statements about transgender people, which might be distressing to some readers. For 24-hour crisis support and suicide prevention call Lifeline on 13 11 14. For Australia-wide LGBTQI peer support call QLife on 1800 184 527 or webchat.
Dean’s statement came at the end of a 12-minute “Wakademia” segment on his Sky News program Outsiders where he and co-hosts Rita Panahi and James Morrow whipped through a series of anti-transgender stories from claims to students identifying as cats, school protests from the Muslim community in Canada, and health care in the United Kingdom.
“We also have the NHS, the national health service there, facing a mass legal action from 1000 families who claim that their children were rushed into taking life changing puberty blockers. That’s all happening in the UK.” Dean said he wrapped up the segment that was broadcast on 25th June.
The claim however is not entirely accurate. In August 2022 a British law firm Pogust Goodhead announced they were looking into launching a class action lawsuit against the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, the government run gender clinic.
Their pitch for business followed a review of the facility whose interim report found that staff were overwhelmed by the growing number of referrals to the service, and also raised concerns about the lack of data being recorded.
The review conducted by the former President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, Hillary Cass, also explored concerns about staff feeling under pressure to adopt a gender affirming approach and looked into whether enough attention was being paid to other mental health issues that patients may have been experiencing concurrently with gender dysphoria.
Attention had been drawn to the clinic after a high-profile court case involving British woman Kiera Bell who had transitioned gender via treatment at the clinic but later went on to detransition, returning to her birth gender.
Bell’s case saw a British court rule that it was unlikely that teenagers could consent to taking puberty blockers or cross hormone treatments. The case was overturned on appeal in the High Court, and the clinic returned to medically treating teenagers.
In media interviews last year, including on Sky News, Pogust Goodhead said they predicted that up to 1000 families may want to join their lawsuit, a claim that is now appears to be presented as a done deal by the Outsiders program.
OUTinPerth reached out to Pogust Goodhead and they confirmed that while they are appealing for people to come forward and join their proposed legal action, no case has actually been filed.
They declined to say how many families have signed on their proposed class action. The figure of 1000 is speculative.
The UK government has subsequently announced it would be closing the Tavistock Clinic, opting instead to open several regionally based facilities that will be better placed to provide service to clients.
Last month they also declared that in the future puberty blocking drugs would not routinely be offered to patients, but they would still be available to client who were involved in research programs.
The Outsiders segment also included a discussion about claims a British student was identifying as a cat. Co-host Rita Panahi said there had been cases of students identifying as cats in Australia and referenced a recent case in the UK.
The program’s previous claims that Australian students were identify as cats have been highlighted by the ABC program Media Watch. Last year host Paul Barry called their report the “the craziest” and “flimsiest” story of the week.
While Panahi presented a recording of a student and teacher interaction where the student suggested a fellow student was identifying as a cat, no mention of made of the statement from the school involved that completely debunked the claim.
“None of our students identify as a cats, or any other animal,” the school had said in a statement after the British media went to town suggesting children were identifying as everything from cats, dogs, dinosaurs, horses – and even in one case – the moon.
Rowan Dean went on to voice his opposition to public displays of the Pride Progress flag, following discussion of a US case where a US woman has claimed doctors performed a double mastectomy when she was just 13 years old.
“You walk through Sydney or Melbourne now and you’ll be confronted daily, wherever you go in the cities, with that transgender flag, the rainbow added on, not the original same-sex rainbow, this is the rainbow with that weird thing on it.
“Which is transgender, they support this ideology. The ideology that leads a thirteen-year-old girl to have her breasts chopped off – that is what that flag supports. If you walk past that flag, the standard you walk past is the standard, you know, you accept.
“You walk past that flag and go ‘Yeah, that’s fine, that’s great, nice flag, glad we’ve got it up here today’, that’s what your supporting – 13-year-old girls having their breasts chopped off. I hope your proud of yourselves because I don’t share you pride in that particularly ideology.” Dean said.
Graeme Watson, OUTinPerth reached out to Foxtel and Sky News about the report but did not receive a response.
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