NHS England has now ordered a full clinical review of each GIDS patient offered puberty blockers under the age of 16. I was told privately by some the case was hopeless, that the bar had been captured by transgender activists, that institutions had been captured by ideologically driven charities, says Evans. Certain trans groups have really cultivated an atmosphere of fear among children and their families. But Im just very relieved and obviously pleased with the ruling.

Evans has worked for the NHS her entire life, and met her husband, Marcus, who was also in the field of psychoanalytic practice, when training in Springfield Hospital in Tooting Bec, south-west London. What drew me to therapeutic practice was trying to understand the internal emotional worlds of other people, she says, because with understanding comes an improved experience of life. I had an instinct that drugs and physical treatments were never going to provide an answer for people in emotional distress.

When Evans started at the Tavistock in 2003, she was proud to be working in a tiny team at a pioneering organisation. But on hearing a colleague describe how, after only a few assessments, they had referred a distressed 16-year-old boy who thought of himself as female for hormone treatment, her jaw dropped. She recalls feeling something was very, very wrong with the GIDS approach.

In her early years as a psychiatric nurse, she had witnessed treatments, such as electroconvulsive therapy, that are now widely condemned: I know enough of the history of psychiatry to always be cautious about intervention.

Evans had assumed she would be able to use her psychotherapeutic skills to support the scores of children referred each year. When she raised the possibility of alternatives to medication, Evans was advised the service would not have any patients without the offer of puberty blockers. Last year, GIDS had 2,590 children referred for them, compared with 77 patients a decade ago.

Evans began to become concerned by the influence of transgender organisations on clinical practice at the Tavistock. It was becoming increasingly difficult to discuss the needs of the patients who displayed clinical curiosity. The beginnings of the more affirmative model of care [whereby the cross-sex identity of a child with gender dysphoria is affirmed by referring to the child as if it were the opposite sex]were taking root.

To this day, Evans believes this practice has not been proven to alleviate mental distress, and that its use within the GIDS is based on political pressures and fears of litigation, rather than what would be clinically, professionally appropriate.

Back in January, Evans launched a crowdfunding campaign with Mrs A to cover legal costs for the judicial review. Immediately, she received letters from distressed parents who had been told that they were at fault when their children had harmed themselves.

Due to personal circumstance, Evans withdrew, passing on her role as claimant to Keira Bell, who was prescribed puberty blockers by GIDS when she was 16. She had a double mastectomy aged 20, and now regrets transitioning, which has left her with no breasts, a deep voice, body hair, a beard, affected sexual function and who knows what else that has not been discovered. She may well be infertile as a side effect of the drugs.

More than a decade after she had walked out of the Tavistock, Evanss husband convinced her to push for a judicial review about some of the practices both had witnessed there.

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Why I was right to blow the whistle on the Tavistock Clinic over puberty blockers - Telegraph.co.uk

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