Puberty blockers for under-18s with gender dysphoria will be banned indefinitely across the UK except for use in clinical trials, the government has announced.
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said that after receiving advice from medical experts, he would make existing emergency measures banning the sale and supply of puberty blockers indefinite.
The Department of Health and Social Care said the Commission on Human Medicines (CHM) had published independent expert advice that there was “currently an unacceptable safety risk in the continued prescription of puberty blockers to children”.
She makes it hard to feel out what her actual position is, which in a way is probably what she should do, but is also very frustrating because being on neither side feels disingenuous as a default these days. I don’t know enough about her to really feel I know for sure.
We had decades (centuries?) of people not getting this care. There were definitely negatives to that. We’ve had maybe now a couple decades of increasing HRT/puberty blocker stuff. I’ve heard positive stories. Everything makes it sound reversible should the need arise. Everything against it seems to not be evenly distributed across the political spectrum so walking it back feels political based on what I’ve heard cumulatively.
Keeping it as research seems it would greatly reduce its availability, and if it causes people to suffer or die, that’s not something that can be taken back, unlike stopping hormone treatment or puberty blockers seems to be. That’s the part that concerns me.
I don’t know much about the issues, but I try to stay informed, so I don’t want to go trashing this lady’s report. From all I’ve read though, a lot of doctors already have to sign off on patients before it comes to these treatments, so canceling that now seems to overrule a wide range of medical and mental doctors for a dubious position.