CNN —
England’s National Health Service (NHS) has stopped prescribing puberty blockers for children and young people with gender dysphoria or gender incongruence, saying it is “hardly enough evidence to support the health or medical success” of puberty-ignoring hormones.
NHS England said it made the decision, which was widely condemned by LGBTQ organizations, after it “properly considered” an information review it commissioned in 2020. In a scheme report released on Tuesday, it stated that it also reviewed data that had been released since then.
Puberty blockers may now only be used by younger people in some private hospitals and medical research trials, according to the UK’s PA Media, who reported on Tuesday. Less than 100 younger people are currently receiving puberty blockers through the NHS, and they will be able to continue receiving the medication, it continued.
Additionally, some secret gender identity centers may offer puberty blockers.
The NHS’s clinical policy states that young people’s treatment “focuses on mental and psychological support.” Later in life or in age, hormones that affirm sex and surgeries may be available.
Gay advocates claim that in recent years, the state has experienced increasing anti-trans rhetoric and legal and political scrutiny for gender-affirming care for younger people in England.
Some American officials welcomed NHS England’s news. Victoria Atkins, the health and social care director of the UK, stated on X that “worry that affects our family’s health and wellbeing must always be based on scientific evidence.”
Health secretary Maria Caulfield even welcomed the scheme, calling it a “groundbreaking change as children’s safety and wellbeing are paramount.”
Stonewall, a LGBTQ advocacy group in the UK, criticized Tuesday’s statement, writing in a statement that “all transgender young people deserve access to high-quality, appropriate care.”
“For some, an important part of this treatment comes in the form of puberty blockers, a reversible care that delays the onset of puberty, prescribed by expert doctors, giving the young person extra time to evaluate their next steps,” it wrote.
We worry that NHS England won’t start issuing new prescriptions until a research protocol is ready by the end of 2024, the organization added.
The NHS announcement, according to Mermaids, is “deeply disappointing, and a further restriction of support offered to trans children and young people through the NHS, which is failing trans youth,” and supports non-binary, gender-queer children and young people.
Gender-affirming care is medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to assist a person transition from their assigned gender, which is the gender they were assigned at birth, to their affirmed gender.
Puberty blocking is a noninvasive therapy that can be reversed. Doctors inject or use an implant that mimics the actions of a gonadotropin-releasing hormone, which is released into the brain. The substance reduces the pituitary gland’s response to that hormone and, as a result, it effectively stops puberty. After the drugs are stopped, puberty starts again.
Every major medical association in the US agrees that gender-affirming care is clinically appropriate for both children and adults, whereas several Republican-led states have banned gender-affirmative healthcare for young people. This includes the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.
Gender-affirming care can include puberty blockers, which may not be a part of every individual’s treatment.
The AMA and LGBTQ advocates stress that gender-affirming care can save trans youths’ lives. According to a survey conducted by the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ youth, in the US, transgender and nonbinary youth are twice as likely to have attempted suicide as their cisgender peers.
