Barnes's book has generally received praise.
Camilla Cavendish of the
Financial Times described it as a "meticulously researched, sensitive and cautionary chronicle" and a "powerful and disturbing book" that reminded them of other NHS scandals.
Rachel Cooke, writing in
The Observer called her work "scrupulous and fair-minded" and, with regard to GIDS, "far more disturbing than anything I've read before". Cooke says the account is of a "medical scandal" and "isn't a culture war story", concluding: "This is what journalism is for." Paul Cullen, of
The Irish Times calls the book "forensic and sombre" and "scrupulously non-judgemental".
Cordelia Fine describes the book as an "exhaustively researched account" of "a textbook organizational scandal". Fine notes that Barnes "repeatedly relays clinicians' support for young people's access to a medical pathway [and] offers no grist for prejudice-fuelled mills." Fine explains what she regards as "[s]ocially just medicine" and says "Barnes's book is replete with examples of how far short the gender service fell from this ideal." Katy Hayes of the
Irish Independent called the book "meticulously academic, thoroughly footnoted and referenced", though it is "a dense, clotted read". Hayes notes that interviews were "almost exclusively" with former GIDS employees who "dissented" from the direction the leadership took. Therefore, while "Barnes has her well-argued position, and the questions she raises are legitimate", "the result makes the book feel very one-sided. All the clinicians talk about how they harmed children. There is very little mention of how any clinician might have ever helped anyone." Hayes complains that the "book occasionally slides into innuendo" (such as about funding), which Hayes says is "a pity, because they make Barnes sound biased", and that "the overall tone of the book is so hostile that it is likely to become another weapon in the unfortunately loud and bitter war over this subject." Will Lloyd of the
New Statesman called it "as scrupulous as journalism can be" and noted "[t]hough pundits will use it as fuel for columns,
Time to Think is no anti-trans polemic". Hannah Milton of
BJGP Life explains that Barnes's approach to writing the book was "very rigorous" and that Barnes "comes across as a compassionate writer" who was objective, "fair and balanced". However, reading the "fastidiously documented" book was "heavy going at times" and ultimately "doesn't give any answers about how a gender service should be run".
Suzanne Moore from
The Daily Telegraph called it "well-researched" and notes that "Barnes is not coming at this from an ideological viewpoint."
Janice Turner of
The Times said it was a "sober, rhetoric-free and meticulously researched" account.
Awards Barnes also wrote an article in the
New Statesman entitled
"The Cass Review into children’s gender care should shame us all / How children’s gender care went so wrong" which won 'Outstanding Contribution to Health and Medical Journalism' at the 2024
Medical Journalists' Association Awards. == See also==