Laura (She/Her) from Surrey said she was ‘ghosted’ after sending an email to her MP, in which she was asking for help for her suicidal daughter.
Laura explained her daughter ‘wanted to die’ because her pharmacy stopped accepting her private prescription for puberty blockers in wake of the UK Puberty Blocker Ban. Puberty blockers are used to block the development of secondary sexual characteristics, so young people have time to consider what sexual characteristics suit their gender.
The ban on puberty blockers has affected Laura’s child deeply
Following the ban, no pharmacy in the UK is allowed to fill private prescriptions to under 18s for gender affirming medications.
Laura’s daughter began taking puberty blockers when she was just 12. She received private prescriptions from Anne Health in the last year – a healthcare service for young trans people. In the four years of treatment (the first three from another private company) her daughter has undergone full female puberty. Her body has developed feminine characteristics – including full breast growth.
Laura described the blocker ban as ‘forced detransition’ and ‘inhumane’. The impact of the ban on her child has been severe.
My child stopped eating and was on suicide watch, she was going to take her own life. She couldn’t look in the mirror and [imagine] having a deep voice and beard.
After emailing her MP asking for help, she received a reply that left her hopeful.
She promised to put me in touch with a GP to help my daughter. I waited and waited, and she never even got back to me even though she knew my child was suicidal. No communication nothing whatsoever.
Laura feels the MP only ‘pretended to be concerned’ in her reply.
Help found in Brighton – then cruelly taken away
Laura found an NHS Dr in Brighton who helped support her daughter for 6 months.
Laura described it as ‘six months of support bliss’ before NHS ICB Sussex (Integrated Care Board) began investigating them.
They are threatening social service referrals and taking our legal NHS repeat meds off us. The ICB must have broken every data protection law. They asked to look at what meds our children are on. We refused access to our NHS data, they broke it anyway.
Laura is so ‘tired of people’
I’ve moved heaven and earth to save my child who is 16 in two weeks’ time, and has been medically transitioning from 12 years old. Someone always pulls the rug from under us and tries to kill my child.
She believes so much harm has been done to her child by the government.
You can’t just rip children off these meds years into transition. My daughter is Tanner stage 5 [Breast Development]. She never entered male puberty. Your jaw would drop if you saw her. I can’t let these people win.
Laura went on to express her distress at the current situation facing trans people in the UK.
They know this is likely to cause suicides. They don’t care! We jumped through every hoop for years and we followed what the government asked of us. I’m in Surrey, her doctor is inBrighton, you can imagine what this is doing to us.
A mother’s cry for help – her daughter is starving herself!
She is starving herself to death over these people and what they’re doing to us.
Her daughter is currently only taking build-up shakes, butat least they have increased her weight again, by 9lb in the last month.
Long way to go but right direction.
Laura fears all will be lost if ICB Sussex forces her off the medication.
If ICB Sussex get their own way in a matter of weeks and they force detransition, Olive may well take her life.
Laura is determined not to let that happen.
They will have to pry her repeat NHS prescription out of [my] dead clammy hand. I’m going to be a problem for these people, that’s a promise.
Laura is one of many parents with a trans child/children in the UK. Like Laura, most are agonising over their health and well-being.
This is an incredibly tough time to be trans in the UK. Please reach out and support trans people in your community. You may just save a life by doing so.
