- The Iona Institute - https://ionainstitute.ie -

Leading clinician warns of HSE activist driven transgender service

The HSE is trying to establish a new “activist-led” transgender service that will be “dangerous for patients”, [1] according to doctors working in Ireland’s adult National Gender Service (NGS). This can include puberty blockers, sex hormones and even operations to remove male or female body parts.

On September 14, the HSE began recruitment for a new model of treatment for children and adults with patients being referred to a Belgian clinic by a former senior manager with Transgender Equality Network Ireland (Teni), a state-funded support and lobbying group.

Professor Donal O’Shea of the NGS said the new pathway is “absolutely an attempt to have an activist-informed model of care that would be dangerous and goes against all emerging evidence of the need to be safe and careful”.

​O’Shea is shocked that the new job specification does not require a candidate to have clinical experience in treating gender dysphoria.

“The idea that you would have an activist-driven model of care within the medical setting is just unthinkable,” he said. “There is no condition where you invite the activists to come in and direct how care should be delivered.

“Any endocrinologist can do gender care safely, but if you’re doing this in a person who’s not suitable to make that step on the journey, it’s an incredibly negative, destructive and dangerous step for that individual.”