It has been announced that so-called “gender identity clinics” run by NHS England will no longer be permitted to prescribe the drugs known as “puberty blockers”.
An interim report from within a wider review into gender identity services in England, which is due to be published in the next few weeks, raised concerns surrounding the purported safety of these drugs that halt the production of hormones such as oestrogen and testosterone in order to delay and “block” the effects of puberty for children diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
“We have concluded that there is not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness of puberty suppressing hormones to make the treatment routinely available at this time,” stated NHS England.
The review – which consulted over 4,000 people including doctors, clinicians, parents, patients, trans adults, and members of the public – revealed that there were “gaps in evidence” regarding the alleged reversibility of their effects on children’s bodies and minds.
After considering the review alongside its findings NHS England decided to rule against distributing puberty blockers to new patients. The drugs will continue, however, to be distributed to approximately 100 children already being “treated” with them.
The present ruling also explicitly leaves open the possibility for young children and parents to still gain access to the puberty blockers through “clinical trials” – a loophole which has attracted criticism.
One of the leading medical professionals involved in the review, Dr Hilary Cass, stated in an interview that it wasn’t clear whether so-called puberty blockers only “pause” puberty or instead act as “an initial part of a transition pathway” thereby making patients “locked in” to a process which culminates in a “change” to their gender.
Such uncertainties are supported by findings reported on by the New York Times, which focuses on how “concerns are growing about long-term physical effects and other consequences”.
Over the previous decade in England, it has been revealed that there was a massive 1,900 per cent increase in the number of patients being referred to gender identity clinics – with similar trends being seen in other developed nations. This has led to the issue garnering increased political and theological attention.
At the start of March, Pope Francis made headlines internationally in both secular and religious media after speaking out against “gender ideology” as “dangerous…because it blurs differences and the value of men and women”.
“All humanity is the tension of differences; it is to grow through the tension of differences,” the Pope said. “The question of gender is diluting the differences and making the world the same, all dull, all alike, and that is contrary to the human vocation.”
NHS England’s latest ruling has attracted criticism from LGBT+ activist groups while being supported by many other commentators and members of the public.
In September 2023, a survey found that only “30 per cent of people think someone should be able to have the sex on their birth certificate altered if they want, down from 53 per cent in 2019”.
Transgender writer Debbie Hayton in the Spectatordiscussed the decision by the NHS, saying “it was never appropriate to halt the normal physical development of young people struggling with the concept of growing up into the men and women that nature intended”.
In the article Hayton highlighted how children and families are led to believe that gender reassigning treatment will “solve their problems”.
“It won’t – and that is a particular tragedy for children who would otherwise benefit from timely community mental health support,” Hayton says. “If the promises made by gender clinics cannot be delivered, then it is better not to make them at all. As such, [the NHS’s] news is welcome all round.”
Mermaids, a noted pro-LGBT+ organisation, which describes its activities as “supporting trans, non-binary and gender-diverse children”, condemned the decision by NHS England while suggesting that the decision might still be overturned.
“Those currently prescribed puberty blockers won’t see any changes to their treatment, and this is a pause on prescribing – not a ban,” a spokesperson said. Photo: The NHS’s Tavistock Centre in London, England, 23 June 2023. The Tavistock’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) was the only NHS-funded service working on “gender identity” issues among young people in the UK. After a highly-critical commissioned report into its activities conducted by paediatrician Hilary Cass, GIDS closed in July 2022. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.)
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