There has been a huge increase in the number of children who are being referred to the Sandyford children and adolescent gender identity services. In 2013, there were 67 referrals, which was absolutely fine for the psychiatrist, who is there only one day a week, to cope with. Last year, there were more than 180 referrals, so there is a very big increase in the number of young people who are being referred.
As James Morton said, the service is trying to triage and assess those who are approaching puberty, so it is adopting what is called a stage-not-age criterion so that, if somebody experiences acute distress, self-harms and attempts suicide, it will try to see them more quickly. However, unfortunately, the waiting list is now a year, whereas it was three months when my child first came out to me four years ago. That increases the distress.
My child came out at 14 and she transitioned completely when she was still 14. She changed her name at school, but she did not get a passport until last February, when she was coming up to 17. It would have helped if we had been able to follow the whole process through and get the birth certificate changed on the same route so that she can move forward. She has been living under her name for three and a half years since she transitioned at school. The school was extremely good at dealing with that, but it would help schools in general if the age was brought down.
For under-16s, parental consent would obviously have to be in place. It would be problematic if a young person was in care or did not have supportive parents, but in such cases they may not even have come out to their parents before the age of 16, and they would not be able to access services on their own without parental support until they were over 16.