When institutions stop asking questions, children pay the price.

I spoke to the BBC this week about the findings of the WellBN investigation. For me, this isn’t a “culture war” story and I have written elsewhere about the dangers of this terminology. It’s a safeguarding story.

Children and young people experiencing gender distress deserve the highest standards of care: curiosity, rigorous scrutiny and adults willing to hold complexity rather than rush to certainty. When patients, families and clinicians raise concerns, services must listen and act, not close ranks.

I’ve written more about the lessons from this case, the dangers of institutional defensiveness, and why we need to do much better.

Because psychological safety isn’t about protecting institutions from difficult conversations. It’s about making sure difficult conversations happen early enough to protect people.

I’ve written about this in a blog post that you can read here.