On Wednesday, the UK permanently prohibited the prescription of puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria in children. The declaration follows a week after the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a significant case about state prohibitions on drugs that suppress puberty and other types of care related to transition for kids.
In numerous Western nations, transgender youngsters are frequently taken puberty blockers to either postpone or halt the onset of puberty. The purpose of the drug is to give kids with gender dysphoria more time to determine if they want to take more drastic measures to change their gender. When the medicine is stopped, puberty returns.
A few months after an independent assessment commissioned by England’s National Health Service found that the medical evidence on transition-related care for minors is remarkably inadequate and that more research is required, the medicine was banned in Britain indefinitely.
British Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting stated in a government-issued news release that evidence-based care for children must always be the first priority. The current care and prescription approach for gender dysphoria and incongruence poses an intolerable safety risk for children and young people, according to the independent expert Commission on Human Medicines.
In a statement included in the same publication, Dr. Hilary Cass, the author of the independent study known as the Cass report, stated that she was in favor of the prohibition.
I suggested that puberty blockers be provided only after a multidisciplinary evaluation and within a study protocol because they are potent medications with unknown benefits and serious hazards, she said.
The indefinite ban was denounced by transgender campaigners worldwide.
I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to suffer from medical carelessness. Labour activists simply wished my community well. Former British Parliament candidate Iris Duane posted on X. Many of us will live, and we will tell our friends, family, and community that hell is calling.
According to the government news release, cisgender adolescents who reach puberty at an unusually early age will still be eligible to acquire fresh prescriptions for the medicine, and trans minors in the U.K. who are currently taking it can continue to do so.
Over the summer, a temporary prohibition on the prescription of new puberty-blockers for British youngsters suffering from gender dysphoria was already in effect. As the government starts clinical trials on the drugs next year, Wednesday’s action prolongs the prohibition forever. In 2027, the prohibition will be reviewed.
The U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether a Tennessee law prohibiting gender-affirming care for kids is constitutional, which coincides with the indefinite U.K. prohibition. In the United States, Tennessee is one of over two dozen states that have restrictions on this type of care.
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