Getting out of the culture wars The court decision against the Tavistock clinic has reignited the battle over trans rights. Paul Demarty looks at the confusion The vexed question of transgender rights has once again flared up, with a high court judgment against the only NHS clinic dedicated to helping young adults and children with gender dysphoria. The Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), run from London’s Tavistock and Portman NHS trust, has long been subject to controversy - hardly surprising, given that it is sitting at the centre of a decreasingly reasonable culture-war issue. Its work has faced a serious setback with this ruling, which considerably restricts the terms under which young people can consent to particular treatments. Foremost among those treatments is ‘puberty blockers’, which seek to delay the development of secondary sexual characteristics, to make future gender transitioning easier for patients.