As the list of countries passing laws to protect children from the horrors of “gender-affirming care” continues to grow, the United States is lagging farther and farther behind. Critics say we’re too bitterly divided along political party lines to get the job done.
Well, the UK just proved their point, again.
While lawyers in the Tennessee transgender care ban case were slugging it out in court last week, the UK was putting the finishing touches on a “holistic” approach to pediatric transgender care—one that has broad, bipartisan support and is grounded in mental health protocol rather than risky, unproven drugs.
On Wednesday, the left-leaning Labour government announced that puberty blockers for minors with gender dysphoria would be banned indefinitely across the UK, except for use in clinical trials.
The announcement follows an emergency ban that extended to private providers beginning in May 2024, after the landmark Cass Review on children’s gender care found there was insufficient evidence to show these drugs were safe. It was a temporary measure enacted by the then-Conservative government and later upheld against a challenge in court, as we reported here.
More from The Guardian:
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”.
Streeting said the commission had recommended indefinite restrictions while work is done to ensure the safety of children and young people.
The ban applies only to new patients, not to those who have already begun a course of treatment before its effective date.
In fact, the National Health Service had already begun implementing the Cass Report’s findings earlier this year when it closed England’s sole provider of gender identity services, the Tavistock Centre. And as reported here, puberty blockers were also discontinued at that time.
Wednesday’s announcement included the scheduled opening of additional mental health clinics, “so people can access holistic health and wellbeing support they need,” Streeting said. And clinical trials into the use of puberty blockers, also recommended in the Cass report, are planned for next year.
In October, Cass told The Times she attributes the report’s ongoing success to broad, cross-party support that kept it from becoming “a political hostage to fortune.”
So far, Cass—now Baroness Cass of Barnet to us—seems to be right. The UK did what the US failed to do: take the politics out of children’s medicine.
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