Ex-BBC journalist Emily Maitlis has claimed that her criticism of the use of puberty blockers directly resulted in the closure of England’s only youth gender clinic.

Maitlis said she and several journalists made a concerted effort to criticise “arbitrary” decisions made by The Tavistock and Portman’s gender identity development service (GIDS) before it closed last year in the wake of the publication of the Cass Report on trans youth healthcare provision.

Speaking on her podcast The News Agents, on Monday (10 November), Maitlis addressed BBC director-general Tim Davie’s resignation in the face of accusations of “serious and systemic bias” in the corporation’s coverage of Donald Trump, Gaza and trans rights.

Several institutions in the UK had become the subject of “ideological capture”, she claimed, before recalling efforts to criticise the youth gender clinic during her time hosting Newsnight on the BBC.

“I remember working with Esme Wren and Hannah Barnes and Deb Cohen and we were looking at the question of the Tavistock,” she said. “This was the only gender identity development service for the under-16s.

“We questioned why it wasn’t data led, why it seemed to be so arbitrary with the kind of recommendations and advice and even the [puberty] blockers they were handing out to young people.

“The work we did actually led to the closure of the Tavistock.”

Segments aired on the late-night news programme before Maitlis’ departure in 2021 included a 12-minute investigative report in June 2020 that highlighted concerns that GIDS’ patients were going through the clinical pathway “too quickly”.

However, the Care Quality Commission said patients were waiting up to two years for a first appointment. As of August 2025, the Tavistock’s adult gender identity clinic (GIC) was seeing patients referred in March 2020 – three months before the Newsnight segment aired.

Other segments aired during Maitlis’ tenure included interviews with anti-trans activist Graham Linehan and ‘gender-critical’ writer Germaine Greer, who said trans women were “not women”, as well as a 30-minute report that called for more restrictions on GIC referrals over “detransitioning” fears.

GIDS regional hubs ‘shoddy’ and ‘disorganised,’ clinicians claim

A report in February this year claimed that the NHS’ handling of the clinic’s closure, as well as the opening of regional hubs across the country to replace it, had been “shoddy, disorganised [and] messy”.

Two clinicians who worked at the Tavistock told activist group What The Trans!? that there was “no safe plan” for restructuring care for transgender youngsters in the wake of the Cass Report.

They claimed colleagues were told about the closure on the same day as the media, which gave them just two months’ notice to prepare for the restructuring.

“There was no safe handover from the old service to the new service,” one of them said.

Staff who raised concerns about the potential ramifications of the planned closure were allegedly told to “keep business as usual” and that “no questions should be raised”.

Just months after the closure, 17-year-old trans girl Leia Sampson-Grimbly took her own life.

A coroner ruled last month that Sampson-Grimbly’s mental health had deteriorated in the face of the Tavistock’s closure, having already waiting “far too long” for treatment.

“Having to battle with changes to her body without receiving the necessary preventative treatment, together with the many hurdles and setbacks, gradually eroded her belief that she would succeed and everything would be all right,” senior coroner Andrew Walker said.

Campaign group TransLuscent said the teenager’s death was a “direct consequence of a healthcare system designed to delay, obstruct and ultimately deny necessary medical treatment to vulnerable trans youth”.

According to not-for-profit group QueerAF, many patients are likely to wait a third of their life time for a first appointment at an NHS gender clinic in the UK, with some waiting lists stretching 224 years.

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