Two new research studies have received the necessary regulatory and ethics approval to proceed as part of an evaluation of puberty blockers for young trans people. The studies, known as Pathways Trial and Pathways Connect, will take place at King’s College London. They will involve around 220 people under the age of 16.
These trials were a suggestion of the horrifically biased Cass Review into treatments for trans children. Following the recommendations of Hilary Cass, the government brought in an indefinite ban on the prescription of puberty blockers to trans kids across the UK.
It breaks my heart when I think of the young people affected.
This research is not about the safety of these medications which have been used for this very purpose since 1989. It is the result of an ideological view at the very top of the NHS that being trans is a ‘less desirable outcome.’
So, the very clear plan is to delay, obstruct and obfuscate transition related care while, elsewhere, the NHS is dishing out untested weight loss drugs like sweeties, to even younger people.
People – including young people – have a right to autonomy over their body. There was never any evidence of harm to justify the discriminatory criminalisation of the provision of puberty blockers to trans young people, but not cis young people, by the last two health secretaries. There were only fears that it would encourage and enable more young people to be trans who might otherwise be ‘dissuaded.’
