Welsh gender clinic faces scrutiny over trans surgery referrals

NHS Wales has expressed concern over the rate at which the Welsh Gender Service (WGS) is referring adults for ‘sex-swap’ surgery.

In a paper on patient safety, the NHS Wales Joint Commissioning Committee said it is closely monitoring the situation given the “disproportionately higher numbers per population” being referred by WGS for “masculising and/or feminising surgery” compared to other UK nations.

In April, it was revealed that 4,900 gender-confused adults were referred for ‘trans-affirming’ operations in the UK in 2024 and 2025. Although the population of Wales makes up less than 4.6 per cent of the UK population, 17 per cent of all referrals came from WGS.

‘Horrors’

Writing in The Times, investigative journalist Nick Wallis called for action: “A growing cohort of people are living with the scars made by gender surgeons, desperately trying to warn anyone who will listen that affirmative care is a form of medical malpractice.”

Despite NHS Wales designating WGS a “potential service of concern” and commissioning an independent review, Wallis observed that it had nonetheless “refused to pause surgery referrals or scheduled surgery (which actually takes place in England) while the review of the service is running”.

affirmative care is a form of medical malpractice

He added: “When the growing number of people who feel they have been ruined by gender surgery begin to find their voices, we’ll see more legal claims against the NHS and the individual doctors responsible. Only then will the true horrors of this industry be exposed.”

Maimed

A man in the US recently launched legal action against medics he believes left him “disfigured and without a properly functioning body”.

As a gender-confused and depressed teenager, Sinead Haupt was prescribed puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones. Last year, aged 24, he underwent a surgical operation to remove his testicles.

Haupt told The Sunday Times: “I think I jumped into the decision for this surgery in an emotional state of mind, and I felt that it was very quick to actually get into the surgery itself from that point on.”

He added, “the result is that it just caused harm”.