The publication of Dr. Hilary Cass’s final review on healthcare for gender-questioning children has exposed the catastrophic failures of Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) to treat children and young people.

The report, painstakingly compiled by the renowned pediatrician over four years, also lays bare the complex factors contributing to the explosion in the number of girls seeking “gender identity development service” (gids) in the last decade.

How did Britain go from a country where gids was seeing 50 predominantly young male patients, to one where over 3,000 young people, mostly girls, sought its services just 15 years later?

The Cass report finds no single explanation for the phenomenon, but points to several factors that contribute.

Social media and internet access have exposed an entire generation of young people to a world their parents never knew, and girls are online far more than boys, with 43% of girls using social media for three or more hours a day, compared with just 22% of boys. The Cass review makes connections between frequency of social media use and body image concerns.

“We haven’t done a comprehensive search but certainly when we were told about particular influencers, I followed some of those up and some of them gave some very unbalanced information.”

-Dr. Hilary Cass

The review found that many online influencers encourage their young followers to hide their gender concerns from their parents, and since all evidence shows that family support is key to well-being, this is particularly disastrous advice.

The Cass review also found that the dramatic increase in young people identifying as gender-confused must be considered within the context of increasingly poor mental health among the broader adolescent population, particularly girls.

A “marked increase” in young women presenting with anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and self-harm was noted, while similar increases have not been seen in boys.

“Mental health problems have risen in both boys and girls, but have been most striking in girls and young women.”

-Cass review

The release of this report represents a turning point in the fight to protect children from the carnage that radical activists have been promoting in the name of medical care.

The report’s use of evidence, not ideology, to evaluate the plight of gender-confused children sets an example that should be used the world over.

The vision expressed in the Cass review is what gender-confused children deserve: to be treated as vulnerable patients deserving of respect, and not as guinea pigs or tokens for activists seeking validation for their radically woke belief systems. 

Let’s ensure that the Cass report exerts a much-needed influence on the care of children in Canada!