LONDON, Jan 9 (Openly) - A psychiatric nurse who worked at Britain's only state-funded gender identity clinic says children face untold risks taking "experimental" puberty blockers as she fights a legal battle to restrict the drugs for under-18s.

Last year, 2,590 children were referred to the gender identity clinic at her former employer, the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, seeking to change their gender, up from 77 just under a decade ago.

But Susan Evans, who spent 11 years at the trust as a psychiatric nurse and senior clinical lecturer, said the long-term effects of puberty-blocking drugs were unknown. On Wednesday, Evans filed a case at the High Court in London against the trust - home to Britain's only NHS gender identity development service (GIDS) - and the state National Health Service that funds it.

She told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that she wanted the courts to make it unlawful for children under 18 to be given puberty-delaying drugs unless a court application has been made. Read more via Openly