The Tavistock Clinic Cluster Bomb 

I had never heard of cluster bombs until I served in the First Gulf War. These were used very effectively to paralyse the Iraqi Air Force. The RAF dropped them on Iraqi airfields and, as their pilots and ground crew did not know how many would explode, or when, the strategy was successful. In an effort to make wars safer for all concerned, these delightful weapons have since been banned by most countries. The Ukrainians are using them against the Russians but, then, over there it seems that anything goes.

So where does the Tavistock Clinic fit into the cluster bomb scenario? You’ll remember the Tavistock Clinic in London where the chattering classes would send their kids for an assessment, and never quite know what they were going to get back? Little Johnny picked up his sister’s Barbie doll and looked at it approvingly; he must be gender dysphoric. Little Janey expressed an interest in playing rubgy; she must be a boy trapped in a girl’s body. Off to the Tavistock Clinic tout de suite for a consultation with Dr Cockchopper and his delightful assistant Staff Nurse Breastbinder.

But they closed the Tavistock, I hear you say. Well, they didn’t. It’s proposed closure in Spring 2023 was moved back to March 2024 and, if I were a betting man, I’d say it won’t close then either. Admittedly, it cannot take any new ‘patients’, but it is permitted to continue mutilating and hormonally poisoning those poor unfortunate children already in its grip. This is where the cluster bomb analogy comes in.

The services provided by the Tavistock Clinic will be distributed across the NHS in specialist children’s hospitals. This has been the plan since the outset, but the recent announcement that these services will be provided to children as young as seven years old suggests that lessons have not been learned. When the services provided to gender confused youngsters (and there do seem to be an awful lot of them these days) were provided at the Tavistock Clinic, at least we knew where it was happening, and where to aim our ire. Now, cluster bomb like, we will not know where or when these services will crop up; they’ll be spread across the country, and consequently much harder to monitor.

I have no idea at which age it is suitable to offer someone ‘gender realignment’ involving, in some cases surgery and in all cases sex changing hormones – but it ain’t at seven years old! As the father of eight children, all of whom are still as they were identified at birth by dint of their genitals, I think I can speak with some authority.

When a child is seven years old they may have reached the ‘age of reason’. That does not mean they can make an informed decision to change gender. All the age of reason means is that when your child says they want to drive the family car, your response changes from ‘don’t be bloody daft’ to explaining why it may not be such a good idea…before reiterating ‘don’t be bloody daft.’

A seven year old child has not made up his or her mind if he or she prefers Weetabix over Corn Flakes (we never told our children about Coco Pops). In either case, they still want to eat it with a mountain of sugar on top and spill the milk all over the table when they add it. Seven-year-olds are awkward and, mostly, unreasonable.

Therefore, in what world—ours unfortunately—is it considered right to take seriously a seven year old boy’s fancy that he wants to grow boobs or a seven year old girl’s fancy to have an appendage like her brother’s? It is also worth pondering how many of these kids are egged on by middle class parents, desperate to have something interesting to tell their middle class friends at the next garden party.

I’m no expert but, instead of pandering to the whims of confused kids and ‘concerned’ parents, I think a great deal could be achieved by having a poster campaign aimed at those same people, and sponsored by the NHS with the words: ‘Gender dysphoria: don’t be bloody daft!’

Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.

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