At long last, the adults have re-entered the room. Safeguarding of vulnerable children is back at the forefront of British healthcare. NHS England’s announcement that it will no longer prescribe puberty blockers to children is a truly historic moment in the ideological battle for biological reality that has been raging.
This decision should have been taken much sooner. We have known about the experimental nature and potential serious risks of puberty blockers for some time now. Disruption to brain development and bone growth. Untold social effects. A slippery slope to greater medicalisation, including cross-sex hormones and potential infertility. The detransitioners who have been left emotionally scarred. There has never been anything fully reversible about this medication, contrary to claims made by some trans activists. The fact that, up until now, children have been able to take puberty blockers but not able to drink a pint of beer, purchase a lottery ticket or vote in an election, is ludicrous.
Adolescents have felt uncomfortable in their bodies and the changes they go through as part of puberty since time immemorial. The answer has always been acceptance, reassurance and the natural passage of time. The answer should never have been to sell a lie to children that they can simply “block” their puberty and change their sex – a biological impossibility. For clinicians to have ever suggested to children that the answer lay in changing their bodies flies in the face of the Hippocratic Oath to first do no harm.
NHS England have stated that they will allow puberty blockers to be used in the context of clinical research trials only. If this is what it will take to evidence the dangers of this medication and rid them from our country once and for all, then this is a concession we should be prepared to live with.
The growth in private gender clinics has fed the concern that some seek to financially capitalise on the distress of vulnerable children. There is a fear that those not reliant on NHS healthcare will simply go to these providers, some of whom will provide puberty blockers after just a single appointment. The Government will need to ensure that private clinics or clinicians follow the NHS’s lead. Those which don’t should be struck off the medical register.
Britain is now leading the world on transgender common sense. Other nations battling with the dangerous ideology of trans extremists are signalling that ours is an example to follow. Yes, the usual suspects have doubled down upon learning the NHS England news, attempting to scaremonger and sow more division. But their days are well are truly numbered: British society has awoken to the horrors caused by their militancy.
We must not lose momentum. A public inquiry should now be set up by the Government to investigate how state institutions have failed in their duty of care by supporting, encouraging or facilitating a model of “affirmative transition” towards children who believe they are trapped in the wrong body. This should consider how, among other things, transgender dogma and puberty blockers found their way into our healthcare system in the first place.
This battle for biological reality has caused collateral damage. Many have been cancelled and had their livelihoods or reputations trashed, for daring to speak out. Maya Forstater. Kathleen Stock, and JK Rowling has suffered appalling levels of abuse for stating biological fact. I was expelled from my Masters’ degree in psychotherapy for questioning gender ideology.
We may not be able to undo the harm they have experienced, we can at least ensure that no child suffers the same fate going forward. Today is the dawn of a new day in the safeguarding of children. Let us never turn back the clock again.
