Indefinite ban to be introduced

The ban on giving puberty blockers to under-18s questioning their gender identify is to be made permanent, Health Secretary Wes Streeting has announced.

Streeting told MPs he was making the temporary ban introduced in May indefinite across the UK, following a consultation and advice from the Commission on Human Medicines – calling the way the drugs had been used a “scandal”.

The expert group said prescribing the drugs to children for gender dysphoria was an “unacceptable safety risk”.

Campaigners on both sides have reacted to the news, with those in support of the ban commending Streeting’s “integrity” and those against calling it “discrimination”.

Puberty blockers are drugs used to delay or prevent puberty happening.

A temporary ban was put in place by the last Conservative government, and had been renewed twice by Streeting.

He said on Monday that the review identified cases where children had been prescribed the treatment after filling out an online form and only having one online consultation with a healthcare provider.

The health secretary said it was essential for the government to be evidence-led when it came to healthcare.

The order followed publication of a landmark review earlier this year, by paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass, into gender care services for children.

It found a lack of evidence around treatment for under-18s with puberty-blocking drugs.

In March, NHS England decided that puberty blockers would no longer be routine treatment for children with gender dysphoria.

Then in May, the Conservative government tightened rules on the drugs, introducing an emergency ban on them being prescribed by private and European prescribers.

This was kept in place by Labour when they came to power in the summer and was subsequently challenged in the High Court. The government won that case.

Announcing the indefinite ban, Streeting said: “It is a scandal that medicine was given to vulnerable children without the proof that it was safe or effective.”

But he added that the planned clinical trial by NHS England into the use of puberty blockers would go ahead.

The ban would then be reviewed in 2027, he said, in the light of any new evidence that emerged.

Under-18s who were on the drugs before the ban was introduced have been allowed to continue using them.

Helen Joyce, of the Sex Matters campaign group, said: “Wes Streeting has shown integrity and bravery in replacing a temporary ban with an indefinite order.

“It marks another step towards puberty blockers being relegated to a shameful chapter of history, in which parents and health professionals were emotionally blackmailed into harming children in the name of ‘progress’.”

Meanwhile, TransActual’s Keyne Walker said the ban smacked of “discrimination plain and simple”.

“Evidence of the harm of the temporary ban continues to emerge, and will grow now that it has been made permanent.”