Labour continues transphobic Tory legacy by backing UK ban on puberty blockers for trans youth
On 17 July 2024, the King’s Speech—the first of the new Labour administration—was delivered to Parliament. One of the most notable things mentioned was the fact that the government promised to ban conversion therapy, something the Conservatives had promised off and on for many years until eventually dropping it in the lead-up to the recent general election. However, in the same week, Health Secretary Wes Streeting announced a continuation of the previous government’s ban on puberty blockers for under 18s as a treatment for gender dysphoria in transgender youth.
This move has been celebrated by many on the right and those who are against adequate transgender healthcare provision for young people: those who go red in the face over falsities like the sterilisation of children or the “transing” of young gay and lesbian people—neither claim can be backed up by evidence or data. Streeting has cited the controversial Cass Report for his move, which found there was inadequate evidence for prescribing them to treat gender dysphoria. Lack of sufficient evidence does not mean something doesn’t work though, especially when the threshold for acceptable data is so high.
The past week has seen many commentators, Hadley Freeman and Zoe Strimpel for example, running victory laps, finally vindicated by a Labour government supporting their position. Freeman asks, “Will the trans activists ever accept they lost?”, choosing in her article to omit the numerous negative analyses of the Cass Report over the past 100 days all of which have been written by actual medical professionals and published in academic journals.
The authors of An Evidence-Based Critique of the Cass Review, published by Yale Law, draw attention to a number of errors in the misuse of data, concluding: “These errors conflict with well-established norms of clinical research and evidence-based healthcare. Further, these errors raise serious concern about the scientific integrity of critical elements of the report’s process and recommendations.” And yet, politicians and commentators alike still rely on the report to back up their arguments and assertions. These are ideological decisions masquerading as evidence-based. Their vindication is built on shifting sands.
Puberty blockers alone do not typically cause irreversible effects. Indeed, as the name suggests, they suppress the changes brought along by puberty, but such effects are effectively only paused for the duration of treatment. Unless taken alongside hormone replacement treatment, which is not offered on the NHS for under 18s, puberty will resume upon stopping the blockers, exactly as it would have without the blockers. And this is precisely what is now happening to trans and gender-questioning young people up and down the country, whose access to puberty blockers was suddenly halted by a political decision.
Dr Aidan Kelly, a clinical psychologist and Director at Gender Plus wrote in an op-ed for The Guardian:“I can see that Streeting is clearly misinformed about the treatment, and his rationale for making the puberty-blocker ban permanent is unsound.” Kelly also notes that expertise is often dismissed as “ideological capture”—the language of extremists and conspiracy theorists—while those without expertise are deemed “independent,” even if this should also make them incapable of understanding the medical and social complexities of the issue.
If anyone is “sacrificing” children to appease a minority group orusing vulnerable children as a pawn in a political game, it is the politicians seeking to pander to the gender critical. This is despite the fact that many prominent anti-trans politicians lost their seats at the most recent election, and parties who ran largely or prominently on this platform received very few votes: it’s an issue that is blown out of proportion by a very vocal and well-connected group.
Jolyon Maugham, director of the Good Law Project and a staunch trans ally, has raised many important questions for Streeting on X, apparently his chosen platform for policy announcements. No response, yet. But Maugham is challenging the legality of this decision. A high-profile legal case in 2020, Bell v Tavistock, briefly banned the use of puberty blockers for under 16s, but this decision was overturned the following year in the court of appeal. Hopefully, this new ban will go the same way. As Kelly explains, “Making the ban permanent is misguided, cruel and likely to make hundreds of young people less safe.”
To stay up to date with this story, I recommend following trans folk on social media rather than relying on mainstream outlets—even the BBC tend not to provide a balanced perspective on this issue. A selection on X (formerly Twitter) include: @AidanCTweets, @ThomasWillett9, @notCursedE and @trans_writes.
