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The UK’s left-of-center Labour Party government appears poised to commit to the protection of children and teens from experimental puberty blockers, consistent with the position of Labour’s more conservative Tory Party predecessor.
New Labour Health Secretary Wes Streeting plans to safeguard children against the drugs “via any means, subject to the outcome of a legal hearing,” The Telegraph reported last Friday.
Prior to the general election on July 4, former Health Secretary Victoria Atkins passed two pieces of emergency legislation protecting young people from puberty blockers supplied by private or off-shore clinics in addition to those supplied through the National Health Service (NHS).
Those laws will expire on September 3, but the new government is reportedly ready to renew them “with a view to making it permanent.”
The report notes Streeting said he would “always put the safety of children first.”
“Our approach will continue to be informed by Dr Cass’s review, which found there was insufficient evidence to show puberty blockers were safe for under-18s,” Streeting said. “This ban brings the private sector in line with the NHS. We are committed to providing young people with the evidence-led care that they deserve.”
Both Atkins and now Streeting have noted they use as their compass the recent blockbuster report by British pediatrician Dr. Hilary Cass, who concluded the so-called “gender-affirming care” model of medical intervention for young people is based on “remarkably weak evidence.”
“The reality is that we have no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress,” Cass wrote, observing that puberty blockers were found in “multiple studies” within her team’s systematic review to compromise bone density and fertility and lead to other harmful effects. Additionally, most children and adolescents who are prescribed puberty blockers end up moving on to cross-sex hormones.
Dr. Jill Simons, executive director of the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds), told CatholicVote that her national organization “agrees with Wes Streeting and our medical colleagues across the pond that children’s healthcare decisions must always be evidence-based.”
Simons added:
Medicine given to children must always be proven safe and effective first. This is not a political issue, but about giving children the best medical care. Puberty blockers are not safe nor have they been proven to help children who are uncomfortable with their biological sex. For this reason, the American College of Pediatricians, together with the Doctors Protecting Children Declaration calls on our American medical colleagues to do the right thing and ban puberty blockers.
Following the release of the Cass review, England’s NHS also announced proposed changes to its constitution, including defining “sex” as “biological sex” and ending the use of terms that reflect gender ideology.
The report that Streeting will affirm the Tory position on puberty blockers comes amid controversy over the appointment, by new Prime Minister Keir Starmer, of Anneliese Dodds as the women and equalities minister.
Harry Potter authoress JK Rowling, former professional tennis player Martina Navratilova, and other women’s rights activists have condemned the prime minister’s decision to appoint Dodds.
“As long as Labour remains dismissive and often offensive towards women fighting to retain the rights their foremothers thought were won for all time, I’ll struggle to support them,” Rowling wrote in an op-ed at The Times.
In 2022, Dodds said during an interview with BBC Radio that there are “different definitions legally around what a woman actually is,” adding: “I think it does depend what the context is.”
Dodds has also vowed that the Labour Party is “committed to modernising the Gender Recognition Act,” describing the current process as “intrusive, outdated and humiliating,” The Telegraph reported July 8.
As for Starmer, while he previously declared it was “wrong” for one of his MPs to assert only women can have cervixes, he now has stated males should not be permitted in women’s restrooms.
