Gregory Stafford - keep your misplaced concerns to yourself

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:

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:

And other surveys show:

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.