The NHS must stop wasting our money on trans surgery

Telegraph

27-05-2025

Following the earth-shattering news from the Supreme Court last month that women are female, not male, trans activists may fear that the tide is turning against them. Still, at least they can always count on the support of our beloved NHS.
Because, as the Telegraph revealed on Sunday, the health service has spent £20million in three years on giving trans women (i.e., biological males) 'feminising genital surgery'. Which, for those not entirely up to speed with trans terminology, means removing their penises – and, in the words of our report, creating a 'canal' designed to 'imitate the vagina'.
I have to admit to feeling somewhat puzzled by this news. According to the NHS website, 'Cosmetic surgery is not routinely provided on the NHS.' But isn't an operation to 'feminise' one's genitals a form of cosmetic surgery? After all, it's undertaken to alter the appearance of a person who is physically healthy. We all expect the NHS to operate if we happen to find an alarming growth. But I'm not sure that category should include the penis.
An even bigger mystery, however, is as follows. For the past decade and more, trans activists have relentlessly, and very fiercely, informed us that 'trans women are women'. But if that's the case, then why should trans women require this surgery at all?
The whole point of gender ideology is that you are whatever you say you are, regardless of your physical appearance. So if you say you're a woman, then you are a woman, and that's that – even if you have the genitals of a man. In which case, there is surely no need for the NHS to provide a trans woman with a biological woman's genitals – or at any rate, a rough approximation of them.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more shocked I am that the impeccably progressive and inclusive NHS even offers such a thing. Because if its bosses truly believe that trans women are women, they should righteously refuse to carry out 'feminising genital surgery'. And in explanation, they should say: 'These operations insidiously reinforce the hateful, bigoted and outdated notion that people who have penises are men, and people who have vaginas are women. Which, as everyone except JK Rowling and a few fusty old judges now knows, is not true.'
Or, to put it more simply: trans surgery is transphobic.
Another insult to private school parents
Still, taxpayers can hardly be blamed if they're unsure what services their taxes entitle them to receive. Consider this other story, from Scotland. At the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People in Edinburgh, sick children are given tutoring, provided by the Labour-run city council, so they don't fall behind with their education. Sounds great. But it seems that there's a catch.
Your sick child will receive this tutoring free of charge only if he or she is enrolled at a state school. But if he or she is enrolled at an independent school, you have to pay for it yourself.
The parents of one young patient couldn't understand this, so they complained to the city council. And, according to the Mail on Sunday, here's what the council's 'Head of Education (Inclusion)' said in reply.
'Unfortunately, as you have chosen to privately educate your son, he cannot be supported by this team,' she said – because 'you have effectively opted out of state-funded education'.
Well, yes. I suppose they have. None the less, I can't help feeling that there's a tiny problem with this argument.
After all, the parents in question haven't opted out of paying for 'state-funded' education, have they?
The term 'state-funded' may seem to imply otherwise, but state education is actually funded by taxpayers. Such as these parents. So, having paid their taxes, these parents should surely be entitled to rely on state education the one time they happen to need it.
If, however, they're to be denied it, it doesn't seem terribly reasonable to keep making them pay for it. In which case, I think it would be only fair to award them a tax rebate – equal to the exact value of the hospital tutoring sessions.
Of course, if they do get that rebate, then every other private school parent in Edinburgh will want one as well. But the row is unlikely to end there. Because these parents may then start demanding a rebate for the entire cost of the state education that their children haven't received. They've 'opted out' of state schools, so they're 'opting out' of funding them.
Which, in turn, will prompt calls to extend this exciting new approach to other areas of taxation. For example: allow those in paid employment to 'opt out' of funding benefits for the unemployed. Allow those who were born in this country to 'opt out' of funding hotels for asylum seekers. And allow those who use private healthcare to 'opt out' of funding the NHS.
Then this last group, at least, would no longer be forced to foot the bill for all these trans surgeries.
'Way of the World' is a twice-weekly satirical look at the headlines while aiming to mock the absurdities of the modern world. It is published at 6am every Tuesday and Saturday