Gender dysphoria: Doctors lament ‘conveyor belt’ treatment for kids

A group of Sydney clinicians is concerned that families are pinning hopes on pills rather than broader psychosocial therapies
Professor Geoffrey Ambler.

Doctors treating children and teens with gender dysphoria have opened up about feeling pressured to prescribe puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones before non-medical interventions, such as psychotherapy, have been explored.

In the first Australian study of its kind, clinicians at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead in Sydney say the emergence of a “conveyor belt” mentality to treating the condition has forced them to compromise their own ethical standards.