In London
England's public health system will no longer prescribe puberty blockers to minors who want to change their gender.
The decision came last week, after lengthy controversies, a public consultation and the conclusions of an independent report.
This study was launched in response to the explosion in the number of consultations in one of the oldest services in the world for the care of transgender children and adolescents, the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at Tavistock Hospital in London.
In 2022, 5,000 patients had been referred to this National Health Service (NHS) service - the only one in the public service -, compared to less than 250 ten years earlier.
The report noted the lack of data on the safety of these products and on the monitoring of young people taking such treatment.
These products block the release of hormones that induce physiological changes such as breast development or the appearance of facial hair.
They have been prescribed to hundreds of children under 16 since 2011. The warnings launched in 2018 by Doctor David Bell, a psychiatrist who worked at GIDS, have long been ignored.
“End the usual prescription”
Another study carried out in 2022 by Doctor Hilary Cass warned of the risk that puberty blockers
“permanently disrupt”
brain development and
“lock”
children into an irreversible and traumatic course of hormonal treatments.
These treatments will now only be available as part of clinical trials or
“exceptionally, on a case-by-case basis”
.
“Ending the routine prescribing of puberty blockers will help ensure that care is based on evidence, expert advice and is in the best interests of the minor,” said
the Secretary of State for Health , Maria Caulfield.
Associations have welcomed the end of an
“era of unprecedented medical experimentation on adolescents”
.
The Tavistock service will close at the end of the month, replaced by two other entities in London and Liverpool, which will take a more
"holistic"
approach .
Personalities of the Conservative Party have asked that private clinics, to which certain people turn, be prohibited from prescribing these products.
“I felt like a lab rat”
Former patients regretting their transition also welcomed the decision.
Jacob, a 21-year-old transgender man, told The
Times
that taking puberty blockers was his
"worst decision ever
. "
“For four years, from the age of 12 to 16, I had this thick mud injected into my thigh every month,”
he said, “
and I still don’t know what it was or what it was. what it did.
I felt like a lab rat.”
Another high-profile case brought the issue to the forefront.
Regretting her transition from woman to man, Keira Bell filed a complaint in 2020 against the public body, believing that a 15-year-old minor could not be able to give informed consent.
A trial ultimately lost in second instance.
In 2021, the London Court of Appeal ruled that it is up to doctors to determine whether or not adolescents can agree to undergo puberty-blocking treatment before beginning a transition process.
Scotland is not affected by the English decision on puberty blockers, which remain easily accessible there.
The previous Prime Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, who threw in the towel a year ago, was weakened by a controversial law facilitating gender change.
Rishi Sunak's government blocked the text by using London's veto, a first since the creation of the Scottish Parliament in 1999.