Welsh Tories call for inquiry into Welsh Gender Service
Martin Shipton
The Welsh Conservatives have called for a full independent review into the Welsh Gender Service following concerns about the fact that it refers between three and four times the number of people for irreversible gender surgery than the UK average.
Clinicians working for the service (WGS), based in Cardiff’s St Davids Hospital, also decide whether or not it is appropriate to put people with a trans identity on potentially life-changing hormones.
Freelance journalist Nick Wallis has written an article on his Gender Blog after making a series of requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
He states: “Over the last three years the WGS has seen around 800 patients a year. The average age of those patients is 26. The crucial question is how many of those patients are recommended for cross-sex hormones after one or more appointments. Astonishingly, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board tells me ‘this information is not centrally recorded or collated’. The WGS doesn’t know what percentage of its intake it sends to the NHS’ Local Gender Teams (run by individual health boards) around Wales for endocrine assessment and hormone prescription.
“Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, which appears to be responsible for WGS, did give me some figures from March 2023 to Dec 2024, which suggested that throughout that period the monthly conversion rate from initial appointment to hormone plan varied between 51% and 88% of patients, though it did also say the data ‘was manually tracked and entered and so cannot be assumed to be 100% reliable’.
“More concerning, perhaps, is the rate at which WGS refers its patients for irreversible gender surgeries. In 2025 the WGS said under FOI it referred 207 patients for what the NHS calls “Masculinising Chest Surgery” – an umbrella term for the various methods of breast removal and plastic surgery techniques aimed at achieving a facsimile of a male-looking chest.
“The minimum confirmed number of referrals for the whole of the UK in 2025 was 1275. Working off the minimum number, Wales accounted for 16.2% of all UK MCS NHS referrals (or 16% working off the maximum number), despite only having 4.6% of the UK population. Put another way, in 2025 while the WGS was sending 207 women for Masculinising Chest Surgery, across the whole of Scotland in 2025 the confirmed minimum number was 120, yet the population of Wales is 3.19m and the population of Scotland is 5.6m.
“2025 was not an exceptional year. In 2024, WGS referred 234 women for MCS. The minimum confirmed number of UK referrals was 1158. In 2024 Wales therefore accounted for 20.2% of all UK NHS surgery referrals. According to population size against the total number of UK referrals that year, the number referred in Wales should have been around 53.
“The average percentages for what is euphemistically known as ‘bottom surgery’ are broadly similar. WGS referred an average of 156 men a year for Feminising Genital Surgery in 2024 and 2025 against a minimum average of 837 [across the UK]. That’s 18.6% of all NHS referrals with just 4.6% of the population. Over the same two years WGS referred an average of 51 women a year for Masculinising Genital Surgery against a UK minimum average of 398 people per year, bringing it in at 12.8%.
“Across all three types of surgery in 2024 and 2025, the WGS referred between three and four times the number of people per head of population than the UK as a whole.
“Some would say the WGS is leading the way in helping trans people assuage their dysphoria on the NHS by removing women’s breasts and attaching tubes of skin and fat to their genitals while fashioning men’s facsimile vaginas. Others might be concerned that the NHS in Wales is referring too many vulnerable people for unnecessary irreversible surgeries on healthy body tissue without taking steps to properly consider the alternatives.
“Which is it then? We don’t know. No one knows. According to documents I have seen, in July 2024, the NHS Wales Joint Commissioning Committee decided to undertake an independent review of WGS. In September 2024 the Director of Mental Health and Vulnerable Groups within NHS Wales was appointed Executive Lead for the WGS review. It was confirmed the WGS review would be overseen by a ‘Clinical Expert Group’.
“In February 2025, the Director of Mental Health and Vulnerable Groups resigned his post. NHS Wales committed to setting up the WGS review by the end of the year.
“In September 2025 NHS Wales said it had got as far as making ‘initial enquiries with potential members’ for its review panel. In November 2025 it confirmed it was in the process of ‘developing a scope’ for the WGS review panel. By January 2026 the scope had not been finalised as NHS Wales were ‘incorporating’ the outcome of the Levy review into adult gender services, which was published in Dec 2025.
“By March of this year NHS Wales had still not produced a scope for the WGS review and did not have a date for when the review would commence.”
‘Extremely concerning’
Natasha Asghar, the Welsh Conservatives’ health spokesperson at the Senedd, has now written to Mabon ap Gwynfor, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care expressing concern about the revelations.
She states: “I am writing to you today following an extremely concerning news article about the Welsh Gender Service.
“The main areas of concern are: 1. Information relating to the number of patients being recommended for cross-sex hormones is seemingly not collected. 2. Figures suggest the clinic is referring between three and four times the number of people for irreversible gender surgeries than the UK average. 3. The service was referred for an independent review in 2024, yet it appears as though this has yet to begin.
“These revelations are incredibly concerning and, in my view, warrant a closer inspection. To that end, will you commit to launching a full independent review into the service’s practices and leadership as a matter of urgency?”
The Cabinet Secretary’s response is awaited.
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Interesting that this is the issue of most concern to the Tories.
Personally, I feel that people who are most concerned about what is essentially a humanitarian issue, have the greatest subconcious fears about their own gender identity.
After all, weren’t the most hostile anti-gay commentators, closet homosexuals themselves?
Alternatively, we feel confident in our sex and reject the idea that gender (behaviour/presentation) has any impact on our sex.
Masculine women and feminine men are fine and completely normal as they are, no need for hormones or surgery, just for society to increase its bandwidth of what it calls ‘normal behaviour ‘.
In reality, most of us incorporate both masculine and feminine behaviours in our personalities, but we don’t need to feel special by calling ourselves non-binary.
Gender ideology is oppressive and regressive.
Isn’t it funny that you want to control other people’s bodies and detransition them against their will but you accuse THEM of oppressive regressive ideology?
This is more about conservative commentators stoking fear. They claimed in the 50s that gay men “preyed on children”. No evidence, but still appears as a homophobic trope today. They claimed same sex marriage would lead to people marrying pets or people marrying their sons to avoid inheritance tax. No evidence of either happening. Now they are using the same “protect women and children” rhetoric and claiming that accommodation of people with different gender identities than their biological sex is leading to kids in school “identifying as cats” (frankly an embarrassing thing to believe as a grown adult). Civil rights… Read more »
New study finds UK economy will grow 17,889% over next five years if we just stopped treating trans people like human beings
Judging by the downvotes I’d say this was a ‘Whooosh’ moment…
I wonder if some people haven’t realised this is sarcasm
I suspect Neil Wallis is a “freelance journalist” like Tommy Two-names, in other words a grifting rabble rouser whose income depends on rage bait. The language he uses purely to dehumanise people he doesn’t have the faintest idea about is disgusting, and it’s no surprise to see the Tory filth hitch themselves to yet another culture war bandwagon. What happened to the party of personal responsibility, Ms Asghar? Do people not have the right to change their own bodies if they wish? You got an absolute drubbing at the election because you insist on treating obsessive fruitcakes like this Wallis… Read more »
Nail on the head. I found this
“Neil Wallace is a British freelance journalist who supports and contributes to Sex Matters, a UK-based gender-critical charitable organisation.”
This article conspicuously frames transgender adults (who are capable of informed consent like any other patient) undergoing medical transition through the WGS as an unfavourable outcome. People swept up in the moral panic around trans people don’t understand that there is international medical consensus on the best practice for supporting people struggling with gender dysphoria, which is helping them transition. We tried conversion therapy and detransition in the past, but this causes more harm to a trans patient. The higher rates of trans people seen by WGS compared to other UK gender identity clinics is framed as an alarming epidemic,… Read more »
Strange how a high percentage of people with gender issues have ADHD, autism and mental health issues which are not dealt with or solved by having a masectomy or taking hormones. Ask a medical professional.
That really is the key point. And if WGS is doing this to U18s with those issues then that is criminal I’m afraid.
It is illegal to help transgender U18s in the UK. Nobody is. The article clearly states the average age is 26
But if one person is 16 and one is 36 then the average age is 26. But anyway, glad WGS isnt dealing with kids. Adults can do what they wish. Of course, the extent to how gender services are funded compared to say cancer etc is certainly up for debate.
AGAIN It is illegal now to help transgender kids any more and even in kinder times when it was not illegal to help them, they still could not get surgeries. Read ALL my words if you are going to respond. Cancer funding by the NHS each year is between £6.7 billion to over £10 billion every year. Transgender healthcare costs £34 million per year typically, but Wes Streeting spent an extra £40 million setting up five new detransition centres. What is to debate? The NHS spends 295 times more on cancer care each year than it spends on transgender healthcare.… Read more »
Not true. Same incidence as cisgender people. But often dyshporia (a stress) is misdiagnosed as ADHD (a neurodivergence) by doctors misinterpreting similar presentations
Any gender augmentation like all other forms of surgery is only ever done with the patients expressed full consent. It’s really quite bizarre that the Conservatives, in their latest rant, are trying to suggest that people are having surgery against their will. The same goes for taking any oral or injected medication.
A bit different when it’s children, but they do have to get parental sign off among other due process so it’s not like kids are taking them like they are sweets as some conservative commentators would have you believe.
Kids could never get surgery in the UK even before the media trans hate blitzkrieg started in October 2023.
Wes Streeting before resigning ready to try and become PM, banned the NHS from helping trans kids AT ALL so now non of them get anything bit NHS conversion therapy and threats of social services referrals for the parent.
They have nothing. In the period since Labour came in, child suicides related to trans healthcare shot up twentyfold from two, to about 40
That statement is untrue. Working in the health sector I know. BTW Wes was never Wales’ Health Secretary
So the intention of the Tories is the eradication of transgender people then?
In that, they are in line with both Deform and the Labour Republican Party?.
When the consensus is that trans health care is dengerously slow in England, all this proves is that Wales is operating more efficiently.
it was NEVER about toilets or “protecting women and girls” was it?
This is an interesting snippet i found online.
“Neil Wallace is a British freelance journalist who supports and contributes to Sex Matters, a UK-based gender-critical charitable organisation.”
And this
“He has been a public signatory and supporter of their campaigns, including the high-profile “Respect My Sex if You Want My X” initiative launched alongside Executive Director Maya Forstater. This political campaign focused on advocating for sex-based rights and single-sex service protections in the UK”
Nothing wrong with any of that. People are allowed to believe in biological sex etc. Maya Forstater is an inspirational and heroic woman.
They can “believe” what they want, but they don’t have the right to try and undermine OTHER people’s healthcare.
You can also believe that Maya Forstater is an inspirational and heroic woman, though you’ll get less takers on than. Because trying to wipe trans people out of existence doesn’t seem to be that heroic when initially all they claimed this was about was toilets and changing rooms, prisons and refuges.
NOW it seems to be about driving 500,000 people out of public life and forcibly detransition them making their lives unlivable
‘Wipe out trans people’….Genocide is it? Like Gaza? Is it or the Holocaust?Can you people foaming at the mouth and rationalise? Anybody over 18 can get their hormones and their ops in Wales. None of you ranters work in the NHS so what would you know
+++ WELSH GENDER SERVICE OPERATING MORE EFFICIENTLY THAN ITS ENGLISH COUNTERPARTS. CONSERVATIVES IN WALES FURIOUS +++ To be referred for Gender affirming surgery you have to have TWO detailed assessments. One by a senior doctor specialising in gender care and one a psychiatric evaluation by a senior psychiatrist. then you join a wait list years long. then you are assessed by the surgical team. There are checks and balances every single step of the way. The Conservatives do not any transgender people to have ANY help to transition into a more happy productive life. They want them to die. I… Read more »
Inquiries can’t really do any harm, can they, especially when some push an agenda so strongly while others resist it just as fiercely.
So adult transsexuals..after waiting for many years are *shock* going to the sex change clinic *shock* to have their sex change hormones and their (remarkably successful) sex change surgeries and the Tories (and this crappy site) are ‘concerned’..not about the insane waiting lists for a sex change stuff, but that the sex change clinic might be being efficient?
Please, make it make sense. The Tories are not a serious party and this is not a serious site.
Believe me. This site is WAY better on tone of trans issues than it used to be.
Also trans stories where the article is presented in a neutral way always get a lot more clicks and comments as the attackers and defenders of trans people battle it out