Be Bold Lecture: Time to Think

Hannah, who attended LEH for Sixth Form when Miss Candy was Head Mistress, and her mother, Brenda Painton was Head of Mathematics, has written a bestselling book called Time To Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock’s Gender Service for Children.

The Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), based at The Tavistock, first opened 35 years ago, and was initially launched to provide talking therapies for young people who were questioning their gender identity.   

Over the last decade, around 2,000 children and young people were prescribed puberty blocking medication, often beginning a pathway that led to medical transition. At the same time, the number of referrals exploded, increasing 30-fold, with by far the majority of new patients being adolescent girls. After a series of critical reports, in part sparked by the work of Hannah and colleagues, the NHS closed the clinic in March.

Based upon years of meticulous research, thousands of pages of documents and more than 100 hours of interviews with clinicians and patients, Hannah’s book explores what went wrong at The Tavistock. She investigates how, in the words of some former staff, GIDS has been the site of a serious medical scandal, in which ideological concerns took priority over clinical practice.

In her powerful talk, she revealed how whistleblower staff at the clinic who raised concerns about safety were labelled as troublemakers and made to leave the service. It was when they turned to the media to get their voices heard, as a last resort, that she began her investigations.

She herself had to battle to get the story out, with 22 mainstream publishers turning down her proposed book, worried that in the current political climate it would be deemed too controversial.

Hannah fielded a range of questions from the audience, many of them from current Sixth Form pupils present.  She ended her talk by saying: “One of the things that struck me as soon as I joined this school, was the confidence it had given so many of the girls and young women. I really hadn’t seen anything like it before. You – and I – are so fortunate to have been given this education, and the opportunities that it opens.

“Please use it to help others who aren’t so lucky. When you see something that doesn’t seem right, please speak out. Be bold! The chances are others share your concerns but maybe don’t have the skills, the confidence, or the words to act.

“History teaches us that terrible things can happen when good people stay silent. I have no doubt whatsoever that you are good people. Sometimes the truth is uncomfortable; it is painful, but it’s incredibly important. If something somebody wants in fact is not helping, we have a duty to say so, and to try something that does. We can’t protect the most vulnerable or improve as a society without that.” 

Our thanks to Hannah for her insightful and thought-provoking talk. Time To Think by Hannah Barnes is published by Swift Press. The updated paperback was released in March.  It costs £12.99 and is available on Amazon and in bookshops across the country.