The news has been met with outrage and criticism from within the LGBTQIA community
BY ELLA GAUCI, IMAGE BY GETTY
Health Secretary Wes Streeting has announced that the ban on giving puberty blockers to under-18s is to be made permanent. The ban, which was announced temporarily in May, has now been made indefinite due to what Streeting described as an “unacceptable safety risk”.
Following the publication of the controversial Cass Review earlier this year, Streeting extended the ban on puberty blockers amid criticism from the LGBTQIA community. In March, the NHS announced that children would no longer be prescribed puberty blockers at gender identity clinics.
In response to this ban, a number of trans-led organisations have criticised the decision by the Health Secretary. TransActual, an organisation dedicated to spreading education and awareness about trans issues, wrote a statement responding to the ban. “Banning medicines with no evidence of serious harm, only for trans people, using powers designed for contaminated and life threatening drugs, is discrimination plain and simple,” they said in a post on Instagram.
“To do so in order to coerce young trans people into a delayed and currently unspecified research trial which both the BMA and Council of Europe have described a potential violation of the patient’s rights, is an unconscionable act that will have severe ramifications for a generation of trans people.”
They continued: “Wes Streeting’s claim that he is doing this in the best interests of the trans young people (and adults who remember being a trans child) who uniformly tell him otherwise is at best paternalism, at worst the smiling face of bigotry being passed off as concern.”
Action network #TransKidsDeserveBetter staged an emergency occupation outside Wes Streeting’s office in response to the ban, leaving a cardboard coffin outside. In a statement on Instagram, they wrote: “This healthcare ban starts with trans+ kids but won’t end with them. This is about all of us. We must work together and do everything we can to challenge the ban and fight for the human rights of the trans+ community in the UK.”
Puberty blockers are prescribed to delay unwanted elements of physical puberty. They are often seen as gender-affirming care for trans+ youth.
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